The Boatbuilding Community

I've always wanted a sailing boat- something over 30 feet or so that I could use to sail around the Mediterranean. I can't afford to buy something like that and have resolved instead to build it. Google hasn't really helped me find anywhere that sells suitable boat kids however and I wondered whether anyone in here could give me any pointers.

I know nothing about boat building but my friendly neighbour builds and repairs boats for a living and has offered to show me the ropes!

Hello! I guess this makes me member #3 :) I'm new to Livejournal as well, so bear with me.

I'm planning on building a Adelie 16 (Plans and pics available at http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.p…) over the winter. The Adelie (as with all the plans available from Bateau) uses Stitch and Glue construction - appealing in it's strength, simplicity, and (very important to me) in that it does not require advanced woodworking skills. I know which end of a hammer to thwack things with, but I'm no carpenter.

I'm planning on rigging her with a chinese junk sail, both for low cost and ease of use. Fortunately, the plans come with rigging diagrams for a junk sail, so I won't need to convert anything.

Overall, the project is intended as a learning exercise. My long term goal is to build a 34'(+/- a few feet) liveaboard offshore cruiser, but I've never built a boat before and want to be able to learn on a smaller scale before leaping into such a huge project.

I'm pricing out the necessary plywood, fiberglass and hardware now, looking to start building the boat in Novemeber.

I've spent at least two years so far since I decided to build my own boat or boats working out what to build. For over half of this time I haven't had anywhere I could build a boat, but now I've got my own house with a small yard suitable for hulls up to about 20 feet long and six feet or so in the beam.

I've never actually built anything more complicated than a box before, but a couple of years devouring everything I could lay my hands on in print or on the web has given me a reasonable grounding in the theory, and plywood stitch & glue construction looks to be well within my capabilities.

I'd like the first boat I build to be fairly small and easy to build, not too exciting to sail (having learned on keelboats I'm somewhat averse to being dumped into the North Sea), and if possible capable of being used as a tender towed behind a larger boat. I think (after going through half a dozen or so alternatives) that I'll be starting a Phil Bolger Cartopper, details of which can be found in the plans section of http://www.instantboats.com.

That's only really a practice piece to get me started though, as after a week sailing on the Caledonian Canal it's become very obvious that if I want my wife to come sailing with me (which I do), especially if we want to do more than a couple of hours daysailing, then I need to build a boat with at least a reasonably sized cabin, and preferably a pilot house as well. Fortunately, I've discovered a design that has both of these, the Chebacco Light Cruiser, also from Phil Bolger. Details of this can be found at http://www.chebacco.com, the webmaster has built the only one of this particular version to see water so far. That's almost certain to be the design, though I need to find somewhere secure to build it and about £3,500 for materials (this could go higher depending on the fit out, I'm already being tempted by 12V electrics and a basic nav suite). I also need to work out how to afford the £2,000 or so annual berthing charges, as I'm not keen on having to park her somewhere on land and she won't fit in the yard (well she will, but she'll fill it almost completely).

Greetings, please join this community if you're interested in talking about boat building, modification, or repair. I can't be the only one, can I?