18ft trailerable yacht

i was looking at getting an old eighteen footer and building a cabin on top and giving it a keel. for you you could use the small rig, take off the racks, and add a keel

 

No, the small rig is still too big for that, you still need racks and or traps. The other problem is that adding a keel puts a lot of load on the rest of the boat that it wasnt designed for. I can sell you one if you want!

 

Thats not really what I want. I want the challenge of designing the thing and if I ever have the cash maybe building one.

 

Evolution vs. clean sheet approach.

I think very few even professional designs out there are a complete clean sheet design but rather an evolution of an existing design.

Given above, here is what I would do.

1, Do a detailed specificaion of your boat. This should include not only measurements but also what objectives your boat should fulfill, budget and material choices.

2, Search for exisiting designs/boats that come as close as possible to your target specifications.

3, Modify/combine the designs to get your final design closer to your target specifications.

As an example, this is how I got about for my last boat. Objectives:

- High performance sportsboat
- Be able to sail and race on club level single handed up to 20 knots wind
- Sail mostly single handed but also be able to take on a friend/child.

There is no exisiting boat that fulfills above objectives. I didn't want to build something (different from you), so I search for existing boats which I could do as small modifications as possible. In so, I listed some target measurements on the boat.

- Around 18 feet long
- Easily driven hull with as small sails as possible
- Self taking jib
- Gennaker with a chute (aka tunnel)
- Raced in original way with as few people as possible preferable two
- Self righting after potential capsize

After searching the market I found that the RS K6 came closest to above. I did following changes:

- Fitted a trapeze to equal original RM of two people hiking.
- Changed gennaker halyard and pole control lines to the bak of the cockpit

The result is a boat that is faster than the original and I can race it in tight manouvers including using the gennaker in wind speeds up to 20 knots.

Cheers and have fun

 

Use an aluminum plate for the CB...

INDY