Skipper's Boat-Building Blog
Comment A dangerous idea So, back to Radoslaw's 3.8m dinghy. Hmm ... It's still too big for the garage. I just can't get around the basic laws of physics and I have no other place available. So, what's the biggest boat I could build in the garage? 11' long and 4'6" wide I think (say 3.3m long and 1.3m wide in new money). I wonder if I could scale it down like Alan has with the day boat? Then a very dangerous thought pops into my little brain ... if I'm going to make a boat, why not design it too? How hard can it be? Well, a week has passed and I'm still seriously thinking about making my own design. I realise there's got to be more to it than just drawing a shape and making it in wood but I guess that's the challenge. I'll learn or I'll sink. During the last week I started to replace the stolen tools and I now have a new drill & jig-saw and I bought a cheap belt sander to replace the pretty ineffective orbital sander that was stolen and I treated myself to a router. What a fantastic tool that is! Probably not a lot of use in boat building but I've always wanted one. The garage is getting pretty clear of clutter now. I've hung some wood hangers from the rafters and I'm building a cupboard to give a home to some more junk. If the cupboard is any indication of how the boat will turn out I'm going to have to get my act together. I've made a couple of mistakes with the rebates which I'll probably get away with in a cupboard but not in a boat. Meanwhile I'm refining my design. I don't know anything about hull shape and ratios but, in 'Boat building for Beginners and beyond' there is a section on calculating the center of the sail area so I've applied that to a CAD model in an attempt to make a self adapting design (I change the overall sizes and it works out the details). It is not going terribly well. Index ----- Next