Thread: should i buy this?

If you have to ask, you shouldn't - general rule that's saved me a lot of money on ebay

Regarding this item, I wouldn't. I'm not interested in unknown, generic, slab sided boats by designers who may or may not know what they're talking about. Having said that, maybe if I did know those boats and/or designers I might have a different attitude (this is the cue for someone to tell me they're famous and well respected).

I've been a plan freak for boats and model aeroplanes and the only thing I've gained is a collection of plans. When it comes to building something, you never just dip into the collection to see if something fits, you always go through the process of research and discovery and more often than not, winding up buying the plan anyway (to add to the collection).

Sooooo, if you're a collector of plans, it has some interest, otherwise not. If you're trying to improve your knowledge (an honourable pursuit in itself), stick to stuff by well known and well respected designers because too much dross just confuses the learning process.

Richard

You're going to get lots of very detailed plans of very successful boats for $4.99? Yeah, riiiight!

Originally Posted by Daddles

I've been a plan freak for boats and model aeroplanes and the only thing I've gained is a collection of plans. When it comes to building something, you never just dip into the collection to see if something fits, you always go through the process of research and discovery and more often than not, winding up buying the plan anyway (to add to the collection).


Richard

we weren't twins in a previous life where we Daddles

i have a huge collection of boat and model aircraft plans, we're both building a yellowtail

i love plans and can spend hours just studying them (the girlfriend thinks i'm mad)


if i where you i wouldn't touch it. I bought a similar cd over here in the uk and it was a waste of money, it was just free plans you could obtain from the internet 1950-60's era, and a load of PDF files with magazine pages that you could barely read

Originally Posted by honkongphoie

we weren't twins in a previous life where we Daddles

We can't be twins mate, you're actually WORKING on your Yellowtail

Model aeroplanes - c/l stunt here, though I've done scale, sports and had some combat models (though never fought). A bit of free flight of course, outdoor and indoor. Then there was the r/c period until I realised it was boring compared to c/l (you can't beat the rush of diving a model vertically and trying to pull out inverted at eye level ... as opposed to boot level )

How about boomerangs? Great plan collection potential there, a great lark and, unlike boats and model aeroplanes, they don't break when they bang into hard, stationary things.

Richard

That CD is available on line for $5 (USD). The plans contained (I have them all in hard copy or data files) are old Rudder, Mechanics Illustrated, Field and Stream, etc. public domain designs. May masters of yacht design are represented, but the plans generally aren't especially complete. Some are better then others, most include the text of the article in which they appeared.

These are merely scanned images from these old magazines. It's a sin that someone hasn't gone back and done this on some of the real classics from Herreshoff, Burgess, Hand, etc., but apparently these old issues are hard to find and costly when you do.

If you'd like to go directly to the horse's mouth, then http://www.svensons.com/boat/ . . .