Skipper's Boat-Building Blog
Comment Reviewing the situation As the garage slowly clears and the build looms large on the horizon I wonder if I'm making the right boat. Last week I found the blog of another builder (http://freespace.virgin.net/edwards.com/) who also has build space and roof topping limitations and has also made his first boat one of Radoslaw's designs. But Alan has gone for the bigger 'day boat ' design and cleverly scaled it down to 90% of its original size to fit in his garage and on the roof of his car. Ah! A very cunning plan! I chose the pram simply on the basis of its size for the build and transportation. But now I have to bear in mind that at the end of all this I will be sailing her. One thing which particularly bothers me about the 'pram' design is that it has only one buoyancy compartment so, when this boat tips over (and I mean 'when' not 'if') I can't see how one person is going to get it back to shore let alone right it. 'I think I'd better think it out again!' Radoslaw's 3.8m dinghy design is only 0.2m longer and 0.1m wider than Alan's rescaled day boat. Hmm. Off to the garage I go and find that it would fit but everything would have to go so I am left with only wall mounted storage and none of that can be very deep. With the bow almost touching the up-and-over door I'd have about 1m around the stern and about 0.5m either side. I'm not very nimble and I think there would be too little room to work around the hull and beside, this design would need to be towed so, I settle once again for the pram. Next