First one to build?

[phuffstatler]

This has probably been asked about a zillion times, but it's my turn now. http://media5.hypernet.com/~dick/ubb/smile.gif What is a good boat to build, from plywood, for a first built sailing craft? Nothing large, using only beginning to intermediate skills, with only a few hand and power tools, with a small (12x12) area for most of the work. I'd love some feedback on this, if some of you could spare the time. Thanks!

Phil

[paladin]

A stitch and glue kit......

[Nicholas Carey]

What is a good boat to build, from plywood, for a first built sailing craft? Nothing large, using only beginning to intermediate skills, with only a few hand and power tools, with a small (12x12) area for most of the work. I'd love some feedback on this, if some of you could spare the time.

AN IMPORTANT THING TO CONSIDER

Intended Use. Your profile sez that you're in lovely Austin Texas. I assume that means you'll be doing your sailing in reservoirs/inland lakes with a lot of jetskis, speedboats and other assorted Evil Craft pitching up huge wakes. Bear in mind that short, light boats bobble and simply stop when confronted with the nasty chop generated by powerboat wakes. You might want a longish waterline. And if you plan on rowing it more than a hundred yards or so, length becomes even more important: for a boat intended to be pulled, figure on about a 10 foot minimum for waterline length. Any shorter and she's likely not to track very well.

Storage.A dry-sailed boat that's stored out of the water most of the time demands different construction techniques than a boat that will be kept in the water most of the time. Lapstrake (esp. glued-plywood lap) and stitch-and-tape are the construction techniques you'll be wanting.

Check out these web sites for stich-and-tape plywood boats:

1. Chesapeake Light Craft: http://www.clcboats.com

2. Devlin Designing Boat Builders: http://www.devlinboat.com

I'm rather partial to the CLC Johns' Sharpie myself, but it's probably a bit long for you (~18').

And Devlin boats are *very* well thought out designs. He's the best designer/builder out there who works in stitch-and-tape plywood. Especially in the building end of things -- his boats are absolutely stunning. He's got a very good book/video on stitch-and-tape as well.

Get WoodenBoat mag's [I]Thirty/Forty/Fifty Wooden Boats -- it's a great trove of designs.

Another design to consider is the Snipe, designed in 1931 by William Crosby. It's a great boat (15' 2" x 5') that you can build yourself in Plywood. It is a pretty hot competitive boat and the way the class rules are structured, wooden boats are still competitive. For more information on the Snipe, see the Snipe Class International Racing Association (SCIRA) web site:

http://www.snipe.org

What building a Snipe buys you is entry into a huge worldwide community of avid Snipe sailors. SCIRA listed 29,857 numbered Snipes in 854 chartered fleets in 28 countries around the world (Jan 2001)

A book on building the Snipe in ply (as well as plans) is available from SCIRA. They list list 3 builders of wooden snipes (some who produce kits) in the US. one of them is down in your neck of the woods:

Lenire Custom Yachts
1405 Bayprot Blvd.,
Seabrook, TX 77586
(713) 326-2338

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

N.
--

[phuffstatler]

Nicholas, thank you! You've given much information to research on. I will be sailing here on the local lakes, and there are a couple where I'll have to really watch out, but paddling and small sail boats are fairly popular here (especially kayaks), so the public tends to look out for us, if only to get a better aim... http://media5.hypernet.com/~dick/ubb/smile.gif


Again, thank you!
Phil

[Tom Dugan]

Build something that'll make you smile every time you see it, that'll call you away from work to sail it, that will have you persevere every time you royally screw up building it.

Really, there are so many choices out there, it comes down to personal taste. You have an enormous choice of designs and of building styles. It's up to you to pick one that you think will sustain you through the building process and keep calling you long after she's finished. No one wants to build a boat that spends all of its days on blocks in the back yard.

Now go and read up on the designs (and there are many) that satisfy your requirements, including the building space.

Good Luck! And enjoy the journey!
-T

[Jim Budde]

Just a thought. My first boat was a Payson/Bolger stitch and glue Bobcat ... a ruff copy of the Bettle Cat built by Concordia Boats. I modified the cockpit and deck to more closely resemble the true Bettle Cat. She's 12'6 LOA, 73" beam and caries 110 sg ft of gaff rigged sail. Not a racing boat by any means, but handles the chop of jet skis and power boats vey well. Was fun to build and gets lots of compliments at area lakes here in Nebraska.

[Alan D. Hyde]

I built (with lots of help and advice from my father) a plywood Snipe when I was 17.

They're good boats, but if you're planning on long family sails, a Snipe may get a little crowded. A Lightning would be the next step up, and not much harder to buy and fix, or build.

Alan

[Keith Wilson]

The first boat I built was a Bolger Gypsy, a taped-seam plywood rowing/sailing skiff, 15' x 4' x not much. You might look at Dynamite Payson's site. He sells a lot of Bolger's designs including Gypsy and Bobcat. Most are simple to build, some look pretty weird, some don't, all work as advertised. See: http://www.instantboats.com/

[garland reese]

There are a bunch of nice little boats out there that would fit your needs. In addition to the ones already mentioned here, have a look at some of the following:

www.nwmarinedesign.com (http://www.nwmarinedesign.com) There is a small plywood daysailer there among other nice designs, but they are strip built boats. (BTW....don't discount a strip/sheathed small boat... aside from getting the strips milled, you can do the other stuff with some simple hand tools, if you are patient On the downside, the building jig is quite a bit of labor and added expense).

www.selway-fisher.com (http://www.selway-fisher.com) all kinds of stuff here.

www.by-the-sea.com/shellboats/ (http://www.by-the-sea.com/shellboats/) plywood kit boats

www.clarkcraft.com (http://www.clarkcraft.com) you can get the snipe plans there among other small boat designs.

www.glen-l.com (http://www.glen-l.com) many first boat projects have come from glen L

www.bandbyachtdesigns.com (http://www.bandbyachtdesigns.com) These are nice boats....all of them. And not too difficult to build. Worth some serious consideration.

Then there's Bolger and HH Payson and Jim Michalak designs too. And if you're up for something a bit more adventurous than stitch and glue ply, have a look at anything from Iain Oughtred

..and a link that'll keep you up nights....

www.boat-links.com/linklists/boatlink-05.html#plans (http://www.boat-links.com/linklists/boatlink-05.html#plans)

If there is a way to stretch you building area, even temporarily, It might be worth the effort. That depends on your intended use though. I think that you will find it very rewarding to choose a design that you really like, even it is just a bit more complex than what you might have first intended (along that thread, I'd have a look at Devlin's "Zephyr" a stitch and glue Melonseed skiff as it were. Do a search for the melonseed skiff here on the web and go to the Crawford boats site....******, but very nice little boats!). Read as much as you can and "build it in your mind" 'til you have a good understanding of the next step. You could even built a model of the boat befor the real thing. I did that with Payson's "Bobcat", to get and idea of the building process and what the hull would look like (the bobcat is a very pretty little hull). Plywood lapstrake would not be out of the question either. One plus for this is that if you miss-cut a couple of strakes, you still have part of the sheet left and you may even be able to use the "bad" part for something else. A lapstrake hull is hard to beat it terms of good looks.
good luck
garland

[Ketterling]

It sounds like your skills are about at the same level as mine and I have just started building a Pooduck skiff. It is a longer, heavier version of the Shellback. I am in the very early stages of the building process but the plans look very good so far. There is a book for building the Shellback that helps a great deal. Also Greg Rossel's book on Small Boats is very helpful.

[Mike Field]

Check out the current "Vacationer" thread on this forum too, along with its related material.

[Charlie J]

and if you ever get down to Victoria from Austin, stop by the woodshop and visit an ex Programming Analyst, who's now building a Weekender for someone. Boat building spoken there. We're in the back of the sailboat shop building.

[phuffstatler]

I wanted to thank all of you who have responded here and through email with all of the wonderful advice. After purchasing every book I can get, and some extensive reading, I'm going to start with a CLC design kayak, built from scratch, not a kit, since I kayak anyway. Then, I'll step up into a sailboat, probably Bolger's BobCat as done by Payson, as it suits me right down to the bone. I've managed to get into a larger space for building, which is a good thing, from all I've heard. You can never have too much work space! That, and clamps....

Thanks again!
Phil

[ishmael]

Phil,

Have a look at the Shellback thread on Building/Repair. That would be another fine boat to start with.

Jack

[Scott Dunsworth]

Have you checked out Arch Davis Designs? The sanddollar is a very pretty little boat. I am finishing up a Penobcot 14 and it has been a pleasure to build. Arch Davis support has been very good. It is worth the looking. www.by-the-sea.com/archdavisdesign/ (http://www.by-the-sea.com/archdavisdesign/)