Plans

[gert]

Is WB the best source of the best boat plans?

[Steve Lansdowne]

There is no "best" boat, so you've posed an unanswerable question. Some of the plans that WB sells may be available from other sources, but given all that WB does for our hobby, they are certainly worth supporting!!!!

[Jack C]

Since they don't sell plans from Knud Reimers or Albert Strange, then the answer is no. tongue.gif

Seriously, there are many other places to get good boat plans.

Jack

[Wild Dingo]

But they do sell 2 designs from the board of one BB Crowninshield!! :D ...Along with many others :cool:

"Best source"? I doubt there is one single best source but rather a multitude of sources selling plans of designs of many ranges and styles... from what Ive seen our sponsors sell about the "best" widest choice of designs although depending on what you are chasing that may not be so... ;)

Well worth supporting though for all the wide range of goods and services they do offer wich is pretty good :cool:

[gert]

This was not a cretique of WB; I have purchased plans from them before with great results. I just want MORE info before I make a final decision and the study plans in the design books just don't cut it. I am curently torn between power and sail. The power boat I am considering is Rascal and I have seen enough here to be comfortable with a decision. I currently have a J White Shearwater which I am very happy with but forsee needing bigger (bring family sailing) I would like a trailerable keel boat in the 20 to 25 ft range (with cubby) for an intermediatly skilled builder (me). I am considering J Whites Fox Island but I just need more info, I have seen photos of one and she is beautiful and I like the construction cause it's the same as Shearwater. But I suspect there is more out there, somewhere...

[ 04-09-2003, 03:36 PM: Message edited by: gert ]

[Venchka]

If I lived as close to Paul Gartside as you do, I know what I would do.

Jump on the ferry. Go visit him. Have him create the perfect boat for my needs.

Just a thought.

Good luck!

[Wild Dingo]

I could think of other but then on reflection... that one takes it!! :cool: ... for drool factor beyond the norm go see him... for some of the prettiest most functional designs go see him... Heck just a short hop go see him anyway!!~ ;) good people! forumites too doncha know? :cool: see another thing the woodenboat.com does!! ;)

[Mrleft8]

Mystic seaport.

[plimsol]

Gert,
Take some time and see what is available locally. There is a very rich history of small boat design in British Columbia, that is vastly neglected. It will not be easy but try. The designs of Halliday, Allen, Schock, H.C. Hanson, Garden and Garthside are a good place to start. You will meet an interseting group of people during your search.
Editiorial statement: By automatically turning to WB designs and or Chappelle, as so many people do; because it is easy, the local indiginous boats, that were designed and developed for the local conditions disappear and are replaced by East Coast designs, which are not necessairly better.
WB's designs are not the best, they are merely a collection of boats that the East Coast editors are prejudiced to.

[Venchka]

Originally posted by plimsol:
Gert,
Take some time and see what is available locally.Local boats for local folks! Don't forget local materials, either! I'm down in the Swamp where shipping makes all that lovely Alaskan yellow cedar, Douglas-fir, Gerry oak and Sitka spruce too expensive.

[Bill Perkins]

Gert I would second the suggestion to look at Mystic's plans . From their store, which I think has a web page ,you could order Watercraft which has photos and a brief description of the boats in their collection .If you see something you like they probably have the plans, with minimum detail and no backup .Ben Fuller I believe selected a group of boats from the collection he thought builders would be most interested in and presents them in a separate book carried by Mystic . Anyone seen this ?

Have you seen Walt Simmons' Wherrys ( Duck Trap Woodworking )? His web page shows some very able and attractive traditional lapstrake boats .For planeing outboard boats I like the oft mentioned Simmons Sea Skiff and Pete Culler's Chesapeake style V bottoms ( the last also at Mystic ). For sail Culler's 20 foot Newport Point Boat (plans also at Mystic I think )has always looked good to me .This is a slimed down cat boat with a bit of outside ballast as well as a centerboard .She draws 2 ft. 6 with the board up , has inboard power and a small Cuddy .

[ 04-10-2003, 12:00 PM: Message edited by: Bill Perkins ]

[Tomcat]

I think it is not a very representative place for plans, because their approach has always been driven 5% by cronyism, and maybe 80% by an interest in rescuing obscure designs. Almost all the designs are excellent, but they aren't all that representative.

They had a bow wave forming monstrosity of a fat a$$ed seakayak as their only offering for years. Their canoes are a joke. Their catamarans, what came over them?. Would you really be well served building their version of the Commodore's Egret?. Kudos for putting some lines down in a significant effort to get as close as one can to the original design. But I wouldn't build it myself. I might go for Parker's version. The WB version is more history to Parker's user.

I certainly want to thank them for preserving these designs, and encouraging designers who crossed their path, at a time when there was far less to choose from. But no these aren't THE designs.

I liked the editorial balance there used to be in WB back a while, when they stood not only for nostalgia, and classical designs, but strongly for the outright superiority of wood as a structural material. You could largely not say the same about their plans. There are the world beaters of a classical age, but not of the modern age, generally. The sublime, and the inexplicable, in one catalogue.

[ff_franz]

-

I'm reading WB now for several years, but get more and more the impression, that the magazines
real name is
"classic wooden boat lovers and their friends"

As far as I know, WB has access to the "the rudder" fundus. If you like that time and spirit, WB is the best source.
But, as any magazine, it doesn't reflect what is really going on out there!

- florian

[Dave Fleming]

I am with Plimsol about West Coast of North America designs. Recently published book on the life and designs of Ed Monk might be a starting place. The review in Martime #17 was by John Leather and he was favourable in his remarks.

Ed Monk and the Tradition of Classic Boats
by Bet Oliver
Horsdal and Schubart
Victoria, BC
2002
ISBN: 0-920663-59-1

[Peter Jacobs]

Gert:
Check out
http://www.gartsideboats.com/
for some very interesting designs and construction pictures. He's just across the pond from you on Vancouver Island.

-Peter-