Thread: How to calculate wood width?

Do yourself a favour and pay a few $$$ to see a qualified naval archirect or designer with this type of vessel experience. If you are going to use the boat for offshore sailing I would strongly recommend this.

John Welsford has a slightly larger boat - Fafnir that may interest or be a starting point John Welsford Designs

Make sure you use the best quality marine ply and materials available - it would be a very small cost on a build like this.

Is there a big trip planned?

regards,

AD

Howdy,

Apart from requiring the boat to be indestructible - which is impossible of course - plywood would work OK.

There is a problem between thickness and getting the shape required so might be a bit difficult to get a stitch and glue shape in more than 9mm ply in such a short boat. But you will also need a fair bit of glass - probably biaxial to make it strong enough.

YOu also need to work out if the shape is developable. That the plywood can bend to the required shape. This requires the use of software or older drafting methods (conical and cylindrical projection)

Are you planning to do a circumnavigation or looking at doing some coastal cruising? This boat will hardly be useful for coastal cruising. It won't be able to get upwind much or at all.

One place that might be useful for you is to drop in to the "around in 10" forum. They specialise in discussing 10ft boats that are designed to sail around the world and would have done a lot of discussion and sharing of information.

If you are not wanting to cross oceans then one of Matt Leyden's Micro cruisers might suit your requirements at a lot less cost and complication, more space and more useful all round performance.
Microcruising in the Bahamas

Best wishes
Michael Storer

Thanks a lot guys.

That Serge Testa guy inspired me and i figured if the guy above crossed the tasman in an 8 footer, it could doa circumnavigation.

Its just a dream at present and working out what is really involved.

If its doable, i'll attempt it :P

Read the John Welsford link. There is a heap of good and thoughtful information there about payload etc.

MIK

Will do. 13' microcruisers are cool, but i cant see the point in them if you are not setting a record. Would cost the same to get a 25 footer as it would to build a 13'.

But good info all the same.

Cheers

Yap ... it was the info that was important.

The costs usually relate to the weight of the hull and how many sheets of ply rather than length. Same weight and number of ply sheets in two boats, the costs of building the hull will be pretty similar - whatever their sizes.

MIK