/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1734321
Bumping this thread cause I'm also interested in building a plywood boat, preferably a small lightweight canoe for wandering the delta.

OP, have you looked at any of Oughtred's designs? Very pretty and traditional and ostensibly simple in clinker ply. Many based on traditional northern european designs which tend to be rather seaworthy.

Maybe something like his arctic tern or more ambitiously a ness yawl? Or a nice faering.

You could also consider a decked sailing canoe, or any number of small dinghies or maybe a larger ocean kayak?
Selway Fisher has a shit ton of nice ply designs too, worth checking out.
I've got Dierking's book too and you're right, they're very wet sorts of boats, made for warm weather areas, it'd be more or less like sailing a beach cat.

>>1734454
Anyway I'm currently kind of on the ropes between say a Selway-Fisher Christine, Oughtred Wee Rob or MacGregor, Rushton Princess, or maybe a SOF Gentry Chautauqua or however it's spelled.

I've been looking at https://hvartial.kapsi.fi/skiff/skiff.htm, seems pretty fun, complaints about stability but you can add a keel pretty easily since bottom is flat

I just don't have space for it right now. If I had a garage or even a backyard I could make it.

>>1734454
Thanks for the recs, those faerings you mentioned are just gorgeous. I don't know about a kayak, but I have seen some nice decked canoes that look like they might work for what I need.

Have you built anything of plywood before? I've heard everybody talking about how easy stitch-and-glue is but don't have firsthand experience

>>1734591
I haven't yet, been reading about it for years but only just now have the space where I could build something and live in a place worth messing about in boats in, so hopefully sometimes in the next few months I might.
I've been looking more at the clinker ply, since I think it makes for a prettier boat than stitch and glue, if you're going to have chines show them off lol. But I've heard they're both relatively easy and beginner friendly, some seem to find clinker simpler, others S&G, so who knows? But plenty of designers consider these sorts of designs to be good introductions to boat building and novice appropriate, so as long as you're a bit handy can't be too bad, right?

>>1734612
Also a boat like the Elf is only 3 planks per side, so in thin flexible ply should come together quite quick I'd reckon.

I'd post pics of other boats but Oughtred's are just so damn attractive and easy to find higher res images of lol.

bumping

>>1734623
Hey friend.
Just so you know, /diy/ is a slow board. You don't need to bump that often.
I too am enjoying this thread.
Polite sage.

>>1734613
haha I can't fault you there, like you said they're just so pretty and so easy to find pics of, why not?
I'll probably start building mid-march once things warm up a little here and then hopefully have something finished by start of June. I definitely know what you mean about clinker ply though, it has such a nice look to it

Honestly Elfyn, the larger Elf, looks really nice. I'm still shopping around a bit but that's top of the list

>>1734623
/diy/ tends to move pretty slowly and more folks use the catalog, so you usually don't need to bump until last page or so. thanks though!

>>1734321
Boatbuilder and professional sailor here. Couple of questions for you to ask yourself to figure out what you are actually looking for.
Are you looking for a toy, a home, or something to take on day trips when the weather is nice? "Semi-long term coastal cruising" sounds like you plan to live on it, or at least use it to hop from port to port. Anything fitting that description is going to need to be longer than 20 feet and will take you much more than 160 hours to build. Live-aboards and ocean cruisers bottom out at about 26 feet, and unless you are very good at sailing and boating in general that's still to small to do safely.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for a toy, something to use for a few hours and never go out of sight of land or too far from where you keep it, then you want to build a dinghy. Dinghys are small, fun, wet, and wont take you forever to build. The downside is that they are less stable (you can tip them over) and they aren't at all suitable for a long voyage. Plans for the Moth class sailboat can be found online for free. I've never sailed a non-foiling version of one (which you don't want to try to build) but they are super popular and people build them from kits all the time in garages. Another option is the Sunfish.
The middle ground is something like the Lightning class sailoat. 19 feet, wide chined and pretty stable. It's got enough room for 4-5 people and the sail plan is conventional. Downside is that it will probably take you longer to build, and you will need to buy the mast and rigging. Also its still just a large dinghy so trying to sail it long distance is a bad idea.
Next question is how dead-set are you on making a wood boat? Professionals make boats out of fiberglass, polyester, and gelcoat for a reason. If you were just doing it for the project aspect then I would suggest starting with an actual wooden canoe. If you are really after the sailing part of it then look into fiberglass over plywood construction.

>>1734613
Damn that's a pretty canoe too bad I'm paying 200$ for the plans
I'll stick to free plywood boat plans

>>1734728
>Boatbuilder and professional sailor here
Bullshit. OP gave his specs, it is clear he wants to float about the coast, occasionally with a friend. He lists a proa as a possible option and goes on to talk about various open boats and decked canoes in later posts. It is obvious he is looking to do weekend camp cruising and the like, not living aboard or blue water adventure. Neither a moth or a lightning are what he is looking for and there are plenty of dry stable dinghy designs out there, the wet, on the verge of capsizing racing dinghy is a fairly recent development in the history of the dinghy.

>>1734878
Lol yeah that’s what’s holding me back on his designs. Like the wee rob $120 of plywood $150 for plans. The seaway fisher canoes look pretty nice too and most are more reasonable at around $60. Or just find lines and figure out the planks yourself. And skin on frame is always tempting. Been looking at the free host weeks kayaks forever but currently I’m more interested in calm exploring in the upper delta than coastal cruising.

>>1734728
If I were going for something modern like this guy is talking about I’d probably look into Dudley Dix’s various designs. Plenty of highly perform at small boats and fast trailer sailors, and his radius chine plywood method makes for nice hull shapes. And fiberglass sheathed ply is plenty strong.

>>1734321
I build plywood boats for fun and attended the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building so I somewhat know what I'm doing. If I were you I'd really look into a sharpie, they are pretty much perfect for what you want IMO. From all the boats I've built, plywood on frame has been the fastest and easiest and would definitely be a great beginner method. Sailing Dorys in general are extremely seaworthy, much more than many think so I wouldn't worry about that. I could probably answer quite a few questions if you have any but I'm not going to post much of my own stuff since whenever I post my boats here I always get internet experts telling me how wrong everything I'm doing is even though I was taught by some of the best wooden boat builders alive.

Looking more into plans, the electric shock would be neat. The plans are free and the cat rig would be good for learning to sail.

George Buehler designs are simple and pretty. There are too small open designs that sound like it may fit what you are looking for. His Book has plans for the Mary Read in it.

http://georgebuehler.com/pogo.html

http://georgebuehler.com/Mary%20Read.html

Visit boat building forums instead of the ephemeral threads of 4chan as all the info you seek and more lives there and there are no trolls or teentards.

>>1735684
His designs are heavy as fuck though and made out of large dimensional lumber lol. I like the idea of them but heard in practice they're mediocre at best. His book is entertaining anyway.

>>1735645
That's a nice looking little boat, what are the details?

>>1736251
>His designs are heavy as fuck though and made out of large dimensional lumber lol. I like the idea of them but heard in practice they're mediocre at best. His book is entertaining anyway.
Yeah they aren't going to be fast. I like the designs for cruising and sailing in rough waters.

>>1735645
Thanks for the recommendations! I'll definitely look more into sharpies, sounds promising
More out of curiosity than anything else, would my idea of attaching an outrigger to a rowing/sailing dinghy with a narrow beam make any sense? No idea at all how a dinghy's hull shape would interact with an outrigger and it's not something I've heard of before, so presumably there's a downside I'm not thinking of

>>1736791
I would definitely remove the outrigger idea from your mind and just build a proper sailing dingy. There are some kayak sailboats with two outriggers but I can't imagine it would be any fun. Wider hulls are more stable and therefore more enjoyable to most people because you think less about capsizing.

>>1736251
It's a Pooduck skiff. I would suggest it to OP as well if he's willing to try glue lap construction, it's my favorite for small sailboats.

>>1737068
I'm sure I will end up going with a sailing dinghy, for ease of construction and simplicity. Also transport, drag, etc.
That said, I feel like I must be misunderstanding something here.
Surely even a very narrow hull is less likely to capsize than a nice beamy one if the narrow one has an outrigger? To my understanding, an outrigger provides a huge righting moment to keep the main hull upright.The longer the "arms" of the outrigger, the more leverage it can provide to keep the main hull from tipping.

Bumping one last time. I've gotten some great info already to be sure, so even if the thread dies it's no biggie

i'm surprised nobody has mentioned Hannu's boatyard on here yet , its a website showing some plans that look pretty easy to make from plywood . all the plans are free to read .link is http://hvartial.kapsi.fi/

apparently 2 boats can be made from 3 sheets of 8x4 ply , i'm tempted to build 2 , try them out and sell them next summer seeing as I have all the tools . I have never built a boat before but it looks pretty simple .

>>1738051
In fact, hannu's boatyard was mentioned in the third reply. You could be forgiven for not seeing it, and it's definitely a good resource with a ton of cool plans. I'm very partial to the 3-sheet dory
>>1734569

>>1737166
You can look at Hobie Cats as an example of how multiple hulls may be more stable in the beginning but once you've gone over you are fucked. I'm a builder and have only designed my one powerboat I posted above so I truly can't
scientifically explain how much better a proper mono hull is. Anecdotally I can tell you living the shipwright scrub life in Port Townsend and racing sailboats almost year round, I have never seen anyone in the wooden boat world wastes their time with narrow boats with outriggers outside of the people in the South Pacific.

>>1738051
You should totally build a 3SD. Building a boat isn't hard but it's very hard to do it great which shouldn't matter to you for another ten years

any info on diy-ing masts? Seems to be tons of stuff about hulls and paddles but very little on masts and rigs.
was thinking a dipping lug would probably work well, seems simple to cut and to rig

>>1739292
Yeah homie, make a birds mouth spar mast out of Douglas fir and hand plane the taper if you want one.

>>1735838
this is probably the best advice you’ll get op, other than my advice, which is go for marine ply, avoid sheets with dutchman’s in them, get west systems epoxy, don’t do a clinker-built, and get a hand planer(power planer, not a double iron plane). Honestly, I’d avoid plywood unless you want to build a rowboat, or are willing to scrap the entire project multiple times.

>>1738547
Monohulls with a weighted keel are better because the center of gravity is below the center of buoyancy. So even if it does somehow tip over it's naturally inclined to right itself. Also boarded sailboats have more lateral resistance and can accommodate larger sailplans. And they're drier for any given size. And they are easier to make rigid because you don't have to truss across two hulls. And they look better. They are better in every way until you get to high tech shit like AC boats, though I don't exactly know the reason that the fastest salboats are multihulls.

>>1737068
These boats always seem incredibly comfy. What do you call them?

>>1739428
It's completely untrue that monohulls can accommodate larger sailplans. The crab claw sails that are super common on proas and traditional catamarans would be unusuable on monohulls because they catch so much wind so high up. Cats and proas can deal with it fine, but monos end up heeling past their stability.
Also you don't really want outriggers to be super rigid. Gary Dierking talks about the use of lashings specifically to allow slight flexing--a multihull will still out-perform any mono of comparable length because of their decreased draft and higher sail area