Stretching a plan

[rgranger]

Okay

Be gentle. I've never build a boat from scratch before. I have restored four badly neglected sailboats to my credit and now find the urge to make something that is truly mine.

I'm looking at a sharpie plan that is 32' w/ an 8' beam. I'd like to stretch the beam to 8'6" which is a 6.25% increase and will put the length at exactly 34'.

Seems like a nice number to me.

My question is this. Is it really as simple as taking the original plans and increasing everything by 6.25 when I loft or am I being naive?

I have four boat building books on my shelf and none of them talk about stretching a set of plans.

[PAR]

Considering your proportional changes are under 10%, then sure go for it, though if you wanted a bigger stretch, then you'd run into a host of other issues.

[gonzo]

If you are looking at the Chapelle sharpie, you may be ruining a perfect design. They are amazingly well behaved, balanced and fast.