Meow-ish

Today marks my son's 19th birthday... and today is the start of his own sailboat build (his B-day Present)...actually requested by him and designed by his Old Man. See...his girlfriend has a sailboat so he wants to learn how to sail and have a boat himself. (Gotta finish this before the inevitable GF change and the loss of interest). Below is the proposed design...kind of a quasi Cat boat but not quite as wide at 12 x 5 ft. I plan to fit it with 2 sail plans...a true cat gaff rig and a balanced lug. It can use the same sail but swap spars and mast positions. It will use a Dagger board for now with the option of fitting a Centerboard later in a rebuild...we'll see. I hope to get it done for next year's Rend lake Messabout. Lots of the hardware will swap between my current build and his also so things will be redundant at the messabout in case anything breaks. This will include at least 1 new process for me... Scarfing the panels together. I have a 1:12 jig made up and we'll see if I can manage to not screw things up too bad. My LakeScow build runs apace with the interior all gooped up and getting ready to finish the deck bracing prior to flipping and finishing the bottom. I still hope to make my Sept 26 launch date although it might not have all the fixin's done. I'll need to get it out of the garage in order to build this one so I HAVE to get it done soon. I want his hull together before the snow flies.

 

Make it a single chine boat, for ease and cost of build. As shown the chine flat really doesn't offer much to the design other then aesthetics.

 

Yeah...but we both like how it looks so I think we'll build it as is.

 

When you posted the nice drawings you knew you were at risk of being picked on. So do not be offended if some of us claim to know better.

The boat is attractive as drawn. It is not as efficient as it could be. That boat will go like a bat outta hell, meaning that it will plane handily, if you fix some details. Get rid of the beveled chine, reduce deadrise amidships and aft, widen the transom a bit, make the run as straight as you can and make the run angle with respect to the WL as small as you can. If appearance is more important than performance then leave it alone. You would do well to examine the shape of the WLs when the boat is heeled.

 

No offense taken and I hope it didn't sound like there was. Paul (the pro) and I (amateur city) often are at odds as far as tastes go but I respect his experience and knowledge. I am just the slightest bit hard headed and tend to go my own way regardless (unless there is something serious that I overlooked and that was pointed out to me...I'm stubborn but not stupid!). I wish I could "examine...heeled." That is something for which Freeship isn't equipped. I can rotate the boat fore and aft but heeling it is impossible with the current code. Seeing as it only really models one side of the boat, trying to heel it only splits it in half or folds it in on itself...rather interesting to look at but useless for informational purposes.

Seeing as the boy (young man...but still needs LOTS of work) has never so much as seen a real sailboat up close...I think this-un could stand not to be a "bat out of hell". Baby steps before Grand Prix I think. It will be good for a first sail boat.

I've been playing with this second one for sometime in the future after we both have more water under our keels. I would like to take this to Watertribe or perhaps the Texas 200. LOA is a measly 12 ft with a 57" Max Beam but with an 11' 10" LWL and a 43 1/4" BWL plus there is a 6+ ft cockpit and lots of dry storage. Twin swing bilge boards under the seats for the shallows and twin rudders for control, Sliding Gunter to go under the bridges with a fractional foresail for a bit of added oomph. With the right building methods you could come in at about 100lbs for the whole thing (3/8" foam core with 1/16" (1.5 mm) ply skins and a layer of FG or carbon fiber on the outside). The hull...as drawn...is developable with a tiny bit of torturing in one spot. THIS one should haul butt in a decent breeze...AND run pretty flat to boot with the right leverage applied to windward...and we both have plenty of leverage to apply! An added bonus is that there is room to sleep one in the cockpit with a boom tent and a board to fill in the transom to keep any stray ripples out. A couple of niches and a board allow the application of the ash breeze although it would be a slog with that wife-wide bottom. A trolling motor might be in order but as a last resort only, not much chance to recharge the battery if you have to use it unless you invest in some expensive solar panels.

A third (actually before the second) one I did was specifically for the Texas200...long and svelt at 21 ft LOA x 5 ft beam (20 ft LWL x 50" BWL) this one should slip through the water with a minimum of fuss and bother. I envision a rig of twin Balanced Lugs or perhaps a Gaff Ketch. You could put a bunch of sail on this if you kept the CE low enough. The beam is still narrow enough to row in a calm by only one person and the hull is slippery enough that you might even get somewhere. There is enough room for a decent centerboard and sleeping for two (inline) is achievable if planned for properly.

I add these to give an indication that I am not stuck in one mode or have only one line of thought when I do up a boat drawing and I actually do think about what the boat's intended purpose is.

 

The blue thumbnail is sexy and it looks like it would go fast. Looks a bit like say....An Int. 14. The 14, as you may know, is a sure enough Grand Prix type and not for the faint of heart.

Keep on building.