Selecting a good design before starting...

Hi,

I'm a sailor from Turkey who needs some advice...

One of my friend has a metal parts manufacturer and he wants to build a steel boat in his metal shop. He has big enough enclosed space, he has tools like welders, cranes and some advanced cnc machines to manufacture the parts and he has workers so all he needs is chosing a good designer and a good boat plan. He asked my advice and I told him Dudley Dix and Bruce Roberts because I found only these two designers when I searched from google and I know Dudley Dix is a good designer because one of my friend built a didi26 from his plans and he and the other people who built his plans says lots of good thing about him and his plans.

Now I show my friend the Dix43 from Dudley Dix but I want to learn about other designers too...

 

Do a search under origamiboats and pick the first one ( Yahoo groups.)
You'll find lots of discussion of truely modern boatbuilding as well as a lot of experience , sources and other info.
Brent

 

After long hours reding this forums, searching the web and talking with people who built boats, I've decided to use designs from Mr. Dudley Dix.

 

GT,

I'm not sure what size you're after, but Roger Hill (www.powercatsnz.com) has a beautiful 14.6m Steel Pilot House Design. Don't be scared off by all the catamarans on his site. Having worked with both Bruce Farr and Rob Humphreys in their early years, Roger can draw a monohull as well as anyone.

 

I'll see my friend this weekend and I'll show this design too. He wants to build a sailboat 12-15 meters range and he told me that after his boat finishes, he'll decide to enter boatbuilding business, so he wants to build an example boat that he can sail with his family and use the boat as marketing example for his future orders. Nothins is decided at this stage. I'm trying to convince him to buy a new fiberglass mass production boat to go sailing and forget about entering boatbuilding but he likes building things.