Beneteau 40.7 hull plans

Hello, this is my first post. I have been following this site for some time and I have found a lot of very interesting info. Now, as a retirement project (one of many) I want to build a model, static or otherwise (to be decided later) of a Beneteau 40.7. I have not been able to find the hull lines plans. As I don't think these are secret anymore, is there someone on this forum able to advise me about how can I get hold of these plans?

Thank you very much if you can help me.

 

If Beneteau or Farr aren't willing to provide you with them the only option is to make your own. That means find a 40.7 on land and measure it.

 

Neither was willing to help. I have a 40.7, full size, but I'm not going to break my back trying to extract the hull lines from it. Any other suggestion?

 

Next time you haul out, give some money to a computer guy. Photogrammetry and lidar are a thing nowadays. He just photographs or scans your hull and delivers a 3D model. Then you can have the hull CNC cut or 3D printed and delivered to your door. It's just a little more involved then buying a kit from the model shop.

If you own an Iphone and are up for some finger breaking you can try free apps like Polyscan and RealityScan.

 

for a scale model any similar boat will do, there isn't anything particular in canoe sailing hulls, but this will help you to design boats and build a small sailboat to do coastal cruiser instead that crewed behemoth you can give away.

If you want to extract hull lines from any boat only you need to rent a laser line to move every 30-50 cm at the side and place colour painting tape in vertical cross-section plane of the hull, then you make a picture with a tripod from the bow and other from the stern just at the vertical centre, not to low not to high that's it.

Then you upload the picture with the hull lines and SketchUp curviloft plugin will do, you can have it for free

 

Thank you for your advice, but I think the lidar-laser system is really a bit of overkill just to build a 2-3 feet model of a sailboat. I have the side and above views, it is not very difficult to guess the sections. But I wanted to try if it was possible to get the plans, even in low-res. I have tried forums in France, to no avail. Well, I think I must go to the drawing board and play the guess game. Anyway, thanks for trying.

 

With level laser light the hull lines can be made with some removable paint



Still is not even worth it, and you can draw the hull with sketchup in an afternoon and print the hull lines with a regular A4 printer

However you can even guess the hull lines with a pencil and cut them with cardboard and make the hull skin with papier machie

This is the stern hull lines of the 40.7 boat, you can print this image or copy from screen and just obtain a good side half, i mostly use stern lines to make a replica of a boat just with pictures even if they aren't perpendicular pictures



Then you print these too at the scale you want pr copy from screen, and divide in 10-20 cross-sections you can draw the lines for every cross-sectional line with intuitive way from top deck to hull bottom




The 11 vertical lines here are the cross sections



You just make half the hull port or starboard then when you have the drawings you can apply both sides to cardboard to make the hull and then papier machie or some fabric with same papier machie glue



This x-yachts is similar with 26 cross sections, you only have to apply these contours to the Beneteau hull curves in the brochure picture above

 

Wow! This is what I call a complete answer. The dinghy is a Cinquo, isn't it? John Westell really knew how to design beautiful boats.

I've got the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) report on Cheeki Rafiki and in the annex there are some hull plans, but not a section. Presumably the Farr office didn't give permission.



I will use the X-boat sections you provided because they are really similar, and I don't think anybody will notice.

Thank you very much!

 

Thank you i didn't know that boat i just took it random and it seems a fine wooden dinghy centreboard cat rig with elaborated wooden shapes, ill try to make it on sketchup

Boats should disclose all information just for safety but sadly boat construction was hijacked by government workforce tourism in late 80s copying car murderours manslaughter and besides boat design education as been drained by consumerism, propietary fallacy, brand image cult following, etc so everything is kept hidden and people doesn't learn any real competence or fundamental details about these boats, but some marketing hype

With paper and pencil you could do the boat easily

 

Some designers allow the Offshore Racing Congress access to ORC offset files. There are many fully measured 40.7s and therefore the ORC definitely has the files. Whether the Farr office allows them to be forwarded is something only ORC can answer.

 

I didn't know it was the same model than cheeky rafiki and i didn't notice when you mentioned i just checked now...

Im currently designing keel-less sailboats besides not having permanent ballast on hull and after checking all designs it seems that wide beam sharpies give plenty of righting and also slamming while catboats usually have high wooden hull weight to improve righting moment

Other way to reduce heeling is downsizing mast height and appendages depth (both create aerodynamic and hydrodynamic heeling) while it seems the only thing these boats should bring is an inflatable in the stern arch, also called roll bar in RIBs.

Lifeboats recover from capsize by cabin top buoyancy (besides placing all weight in the bilge) and beam-height ratio rather than ballast depth as we are accustomed to think.



The hull of the 40.7 seems a well balanced design that has been kept by x-yachts for a reason, and there are builders introducing steel frames for the keel including x-yachts, maybe you could add a steel grid to the existing fiberglass grid and improve keel attachment



Or just store internal cargo on the bilge as ballast and install a swing centreboard and add some permanent ballast or water ballast and also daggerboards or leeboards to improve upwind, also downsizing mast height would be a good idea



I forgot i uploaded that x-yachts hull on sketchup 3D Warehouse https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/cf813758-8179-4139-9df7-85ce7954b383/x-yachts-X-3D-model-hull

 

Not at all. A scale model is an exact representation of the original.

 

You got the waterlines and profile. That is all you need to get the offsets. They give all the xyz locations of the points.

 

Wrong again - X Yachts did NOT "keep" the lines of the 40.7 at all. No person with any decent knowledge of yacht design would fail to see very significant differences between that X Yacht and the 40.7.

No person with decent knowledge of hull structure would claim that builders are "introducing" steel keel frames since they have been around for many decades.

No person who knows Beneteau construction would claim that it would be practical to replace the 40.7's glass grid with a steel one, or fit one with a swing keel.

You'd have to be insanely arrogant to claim that downsizing the 40.7 rig would be a good idea. It's an incredibly successful boat by a brilliant designer and works beautifully for a reason.

 

You should already know that I'm ignoring your account since a month and I stressed the word "add" steel to the existing fiberglass frame from that infamous same boat that lost the keel and killed a crew.

The x-yachts and 40.7 hulls are almost the same so you don't have idea about hull lines design and doesn't matter at all some curve here and there theres no druid magic recipe, and less for a model boat and yes downsizing mast is always a good idea mostly for storms when the usual sail area doesn't make any sense until you sail bare pole.

There are some multichine centreboards and this wide hull profile could work fine for a centreboard and any boat can do a centreboard conversion without much hassle just because the existing keel reinforcement there