Chrysler Sailors Forum

Any of ya'll ever build a wooden boat, sail or otherwise? Sounds like a fun and interesting thing to do....time consuming and probably a little aggravating but fun.

Vic

We rebuilt one last summer, a Chesapeake Flatie. haven't sailed it yet, I'll let you know

Vic,

I have always wanted to build a wood sailboat. But have yet to find the time. I have always liked these:

http://www.stevproj.com/

Particularly the Weekender and the Vacationer. They have great lines for being a plywood boat.

Dan

No joke my 1st mate is looking at plans now so she can build a sail dingy
and
one of my close friends is on his second wood sailboat build but won't let me help. ( he thinks it would get finished to quick) lol I think he likes hanging out in his garage.

Norm Abrams built one of these on New Yankee Workshop a long time back.

http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct.php?708

It was funny at the end, as they had two of them - sailor Steve Thomas climbed aboard his and headed out, leaving Norm at the dock jiggling on the lines while Steve called back "come on !!"

A friend of mine built one in wood shop back in high school. I talked with him at our 25th reunion and he said it lasted about 10 years before it rotted out. He said he used the wrong lumber for the job and he really missed his boat but did not have the time to do it again correctly. It was a very cool looking boat.

Thanks
Alan

P.S. Norm made a sail boat, wow, that guy can build anything he wants to and gets paid to do it on TV. You have to love it.

Thanks for all the replys fella's! I've enjoyed reading them. My first thought when I got into this was to build a boat, then a guy asked me if I wanted to sail this year or next....or the next. That kinda decided it for this year but the urge is still there.

Guster, I looked at that Weenender til I wore the color off my computer screen. I like the Vacationer too but it's probably too big a project for my shop and yes, classic looking lines to me, who knows next to nothing 'bout this sorta thing.

Fran, I'd be tickeled to know how that Flatie sails. Never heard of them.....but when you consider the source, (me), that's meaningless.

Thanks again.

Vic

I have mentioned on previous posts that I have built wooden rowing shells. The first two, "Kingfisher's", were built from plans from Wooden Boat Magazine. The third was basically the same design reduced by 10% and the last boat, was a double that I designed for a friend, to carry camping gear for two people. All the boats were constructed of 1/8" mahogany plywood over sitka spruce stringers using epoxy, there are no fasteners used in the hull construction. I built my first boat 20 years ago and I still use it. It has been rowed several hundred miles, it has been baked, frozen, swamped and I have never had a structural problem with it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93952888@N ... 595981283/

Alanhod wrote:
P.S. Norm made a sail boat, wow, that guy can build anything he wants to

Anytime the first mate sees Norm build something she wants, and asks me about it I point to all the nice tools he has and say "Sure, I can do it. I'll just need one of those and one of those and about 2 grand in those clamps, and..."

That's just pretty doggone neat there sauerleigh!!!

Tools can make a lot of difference but there is no substitute for talent and skill. I need the tools....

Vic

Wa-a-ay back when, the original plan for me was to build my own boat and then sail her around the world. That way I would be intimately familiar with her every system and idiosynchrosy. Of course, I was 14 or 15 at the time. then I became enchanted with massive floating fiberglass McMansions (better known as multihulls).

I subscribed to both Wooden Boat and Boatbuilder for several years. In fact, the tender I want to make for Daydream Believer is a Shellback Dinghy from plans available from the Wooden Boat store.

About 10-12 years ago I decided that I didn't need their plans to build a Six Hour Canoe. So I set out to make one myself, using my intuition. It floated! BOY did it float. I had a little too much rocker in the bottom and it took 480 pounds of cinder blocks plus 300 pounds of ME to sink it enough to get both ends in the water at the same time!!

But the funniest part was that when I initially installed the center thwart I was off about six inches. So there was this line of 3/16" holes all the way across the bottom of the boat. When I got her to settle to the waterline they started to squirt water up into the boat. I am not kidding you, they looked just like the cartoon fountains that spring up when Elmer Fudd shot a hole in his boat bottom. She made a fine bon fire, and was my last attempt at building a boat, until some time later this summer.

Whe our kids were in 2nd and 4th grade we, along with my father built a Mirror Dingy. It is an 11 ft boat with a gaff and boom rig you can cat or sloop rig You can rig it in about 5 minutes. It rows well and if dumped, it comes up dry. It was a stitch and glue kit and came complete with all rigging and bright red sails. It has a trunckated bow and rides high in the water. I think it would tow well as a dingy. Would like to try it someday.

The kit was about $800 when we bought it about 25 years ago but they really went up in price. Even a neglected one with some rot is way out of line.
Clair

I should have added the website so you can check out these boats. We left our's in the natural wood totaly encapsulated in West System then several coats of poly. The website is usmirrorsailing.com
Clair

We built the canoe on this site in 2007:

http://www.bateau.com/freeplans.php

Here is the url for pics of the canoe project:

http://www.partydogentertainment.com/canoe/index.html

Didn't do a perfect job, used cheap plywood and epoxy from the big box home improvement store. We plan on making more boats, but I want to return "Ya Never Know" to the water first.

Stitch and glue isn't so hard. I would do a little boat to practice on first, so that you know what you are dealing with with the epoxy. Lots of resources on the net for tips, and parts. Marine plywood is the hardest to find at a decent price.

The only boats I've built are the old square rigger ships for display. I used to build a lot of RC plane sna dthat just seemed to be the next progression. I have however run out of time and have not built a model ship in quite a while.

Scott

I have built a couple of small wooden boats. I would recommend "Boats With An Open Mind", or any book by Phil Bolger or Harold "Dynamite" Payson. These gentlemen have gone a long way to make entry level wood boat building as painless as possible. Just google them or look on Amazon and you can find many used books available. The books have plans that can be used for construction or Phil Bolger's business partner can sell you full size plans. There are numerous small boat forums out there. It's a lot of fun.