a typical novice sort of question

[trefor]

hello, first time poster, so bear with me if i come off as ignorant as i am. i am looking for a few suggestions from people with much more knowledge in building and sailing small sailboats than i have, this seems the place to start.

i am thinking of building a small sailboat in my garage, soon. something i can cartop, maybe in the 8-14 foot range. if that's feasible? i really like the look and simplicity of single chine skiff/sharpie type boats. it can be open with a leeboard or make use of a daggerboard. i also prefer the look and simplicity of a boomless spritsail or a leg-o-mutton sprit over other traditional sailplans.

i live in sw missouri, usa, so 95 percent of my sailing will be in fairly sheltered man-made lake water. i'd like something that's first a sailor, second a rower. i'm also thinking plywood stitch and glue construction.

if anyone could point me in the direction of some boat plans, your help and suggestions would be quite welcome.

thanks,
trevor

[willmarsh3]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Reuel Parker presents many sharpie designs. A few of these IIRC might be small enough to cartop or use a small trailer.

http://www.parker-marine.com/parkerlivro.htm

I have this book and it's a nice read. I have built a couple of boats but not yet a sharpie.

Also you can edit your profile to add your location. This will show in the upper right hand corner of any posts you make.

[trefor]

thanks, for the welcome, link and profile info. much appreciated!

-trevor

[JimD]

Here's a sweet little 11 footer, should weigh about 75#, from Paul Fisher:

http://www.selway-fisher.com/Drake11d1.gifhttp://www.selway-fisher.com/Drake11p2.jpg

http://www.selway-fisher.com/SharpieDory.htm

[Thorne]

If cartopping is an absolute and unchangeable requirement, you'll need to go for a skin on frame (SOF) design.
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/04/s/columns/cupp/19/index.cfm

The other lightweight type of construction is cedar strip covered with fiberglass, but once you add sailing stuff like centerboards, mast partners and mast steps it is easy to get too heavy.

New builders (myself included) routinely overbuild and often add 20% to the published weight of many basic designs -- which means a 14' sailing hull will probably be too heavy to safely cartop.

[davebrown]

btw, hello thorne. i couldn't agree more. i overbuild every boat, probably out of a misplaced sense of caution. your idea to build a good sailing skiff is super! consider also the weekend skiff. that was the second boat i built, and they have a very clear, and detailed, book that goes in the place of plans, and i think is pretty hard to screw up. i mean i found a way to. but the boat came out fine. i shortened mine from 16 to 14 ft.

[trefor]

thanks for the suggestions. i'll look into the weekend skiff and sharpie dory plans.

honestly, i'm used to cartopping a $50 17' aluminum garage sale canoe. jokingly referred to as "the viking ship", since it's so ridiculously heavy and unwieldy. i manage to get it loaded by myself. my wife can't even lift half of it overhead, so i have to. anything smaller than that should feel like a walk in the park.

[DerekW]

Welcome!

It sounds as though you could reap a lot of return from picking up a copy of Jim Michalak's book, Boatbuilding for beginners and beyond (http://www.duckworksbbs.com/media/books/michalak/index.htm). In a very down to earth fashion, he covers building, sailing and powering the sort of boat you describe. The book even contains fully detailed [although small scaled] plans for a few of his boats, including Mayfly, a fourteen foot skiff (http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/mayfly14/index.htm) with a leg o' mutton spritboom rig. Book and full sized plans available from Duckworks.

cheers
Derek

[DGentry]

Hi Trefor
I heartily second DerekW's Jim Michalak recommendation. Also, check out any book by Harold "Dynamite" Payson, which are also aimed at beginners who want to build simple row/sail boats.
Check out his website, too: www.instantboats.com (http://www.instantboats.com) for some easy to build Phil Bolger designs. Look at the Teal or the June Bug, in particular, as they might fill your requirements quite well (June Bug being the superior boat).

Good luck!
Dave Gentry

[trefor]

thanks derek and dave for the replies.

i actually have a couple of the payson/bolger books, "instant boats", "build the new instant boats" and "how to build the gloucester light dory". over the past four to six months, i've been going through them rather religiously, along with "the working guide to traditional small boat sails" by david nichols, plus "wooden boat magazine" and "small craft advisor" and a slew of nautical-based literature.

is there anyway to build any of the bolger or michalak boats without the external chine logs? is that the correct name for the external boards across the chine on their instant boats? i love the way many their boats look, accept for the external chine part. are they structural or performance based? can they be alleviated by epoxy and glass use?

thanks,
trevor

[Thorne]

Steve Chambers is active in our area here, and has built several Michalak designs with all major mods approved by the designer.

His Wooboto sails very well, and I think he just added a mizzen to it and completed a test sail in the Monterey Bay area. Don't know about the chines, but he cartops it all over the place.

Here is a photo (not by me) from last years SF Gunkholing trip on the CA Delta -
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/gatherings/delta/delta2008_wooboto_IMG_4630.jpg
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/gatherings/delta/index.htm

[DGentry]

. . . is there anyway to build any of the bolger or michalak boats without the external chine logs? is that the correct name for the external boards across the chine on their instant boats? i love the way many their boats look, accept for the external chine part. are they structural or performance based? can they be alleviated by epoxy and glass use?

thanks,
trevor

Those external chine logs are primarily for ease of building (with some protective aspects for the chines), and can often be replaced by internal chine logs, or the logs can be done away with altogether if you are competent at stitch and glue construction.

Many of Michalak and Bolger's designs are designed for stitch and glue (e.g. the Wooboto or the Cartopper), too, though I think screw and glue is a much faster, easier and vastly less messy (if often not quite as refined) way of creating a simple hull.

Michalak designs can be viewed here: http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/michalak.htm

[Lewisboats]

Summer Breeze by David Beede...a nice 2 sheeter proven design with free plans. Edited to add: it should run in the neighborhood of 75-80 lbs if you are relatively careful. 2 sheets of 1/4" run about 50 lbs so there is some room to play with in my estimate. I know a guy who car (actually truck...its a Ranger) tops his to Rend lake on a yearly basis.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Cartopping is about weight. No matter what boat is your heart's desire, if you can't get it up on the roof it's of no use to you. Before you buy plans, wood, fasteners, whatever, you have to decide how much you, and any helpers you can dig up, can lift to the height of you car's roof. For starters weigh the canoe so you have an approximate idea what your capabilities are.
For a rough approximation of how much various hulls weigh go to this site.
http://www.boatplans-online.com/
Every hull has a listed "design weight".The weights shown are calculated, bare minimums. Hull only with two coats of epoxy and no hardware. Minimum weight are hard to achieve if you have no experience. The desire to make the boat "better" overcomes all of us and "better" always means "heavier".
I usually say 110 lb. is the cartopping limit but I am not an iron pumper nor was I one in my youth. Right now I'm very happy wit a 65 lb. pram.
The lightest and the easiest hulls to construct are Stitch & Glue. An open topped dinghy in S&G with sailing options will give you the biggest boat for a given weight without jumping thru' a lot of hoops.

[trefor]

thanks to everyone for the speedy replies. there's certainly a wealth of knowledge and educated opinion to pick from on this forum. you've given me plenty to go over this morning.

-trevor

[Daniel Noyes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QxzD29cQ8o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB-qLtFz4LE&NR=1

I can take some measurements if you are interested, I dont sell "plans" for this skiff but would like to work up a building packet.
Dan

[trefor]

davebrown,

i got the weekend skiff book in the mail this morning. in briefly scanning through it on my lunch hour, it seems an easy enough build for someone with no experience like myself. thanks for the suggestion, i'll be reading through it this week.

also, how did you shorten the boat to 14'? did it effect the performance much? and did you stick with the book's sailplan? i was thinking of using a loose footed sprit rig instead of what looks to be a lug rig.

and daniel noyes,

thanks for the reply. that's a beautiful boat, but i'm willing to bet it's out of my league a little. think "no woodworking experience what-so-ever". also, i've seen some of your boat images on flickr before. i've stumbled across them several times when searching for dory pics to study. nice boats you have there.

trevor