First Project

[smenkhare]

Hi,
I would like to design and build a sports cruiser of some sort. similar to a sea ray or four winns, Preferably out of fiberglass or GRP but I have no experience in design or building. Could someone please give me some pointers?

Thanks.

[marshmat]

Welcome to the forums, smenkhare!

No design or building experience you say?
Advice #1: Start small. The difficulty of a home-build project increases exponentially with size.
Advice #2: Have lots of time on hand.
Advice #3: Have at least three times as much money on hand as you expect to need.

It's great to jump headlong into a little boat project, with plans that you know are good and materials that you have time to learn to work with. Jumping headlong into a larger boat makes things far more difficult. Tooling to build big fibreglass hulls is very very very expensive and labour intensive. Large hulls get to be heavy and difficult to work with. And designing a large hull is a lot more difficult than it looks.

If you want a big boat to work on, I'd suggest finding a used hull that you can refit to suit your needs. If you want the boatbuilding experience, start with a wood or glass-over-plywood boat of no more than 20 feet. If you really want to do your own design, stay small to start and expect it not to perform as you expect it to. By all means post questions here, and I'm sure at least a few more boaters will toss their $0.02 worth into this thread.