Builders Articles

Quattro Building

by Peter Williams From-Maltese Boats and Yachting Magazine,May 1994

One of the cheapest and most cost effective ways of owning your own small sailing boat is to build it yourself! I know that the thought of building a boat immediately puts a lot of people off, thinking that the complete scope of tooling up, lines plans and actually building their own boat is a task only for trained people with vast experience. Well, I have now actually built two small sailing boats which have proved themselves and yet before I started, I really thought that I was treading in an area which I should leave to the experienced boat builder.

The particular boat which I would like to tell you about is a very new design catamaran from the board of the world-famous designer Richard Woods. It is a 16 foot twin trapeze racing catamaran called THE QUATTRO which has a rotating mast, fully battened main sail, the jib being fastened to the forestay by an ingenious zip method. The control lines are laid out so well that all sail adjustments can be made while helm and crew are out on the trapeze. The main is controlled using two triple blocks giving 7 to 1 purchase and the jib sheet is also run on a double block mechanism thereby giving the crew an easy time with a 3 to 1 advantage. All blocks fitted are hi-tech, full ball bearing type with ratchet fittings for the main control lines.

The tillers are of the Akerman type, IYE equipment being specified by design, but to save money plans are available to build your own. The mast is completely sealed so that when the boat tips over, it does not pass through the 90' position as the mast floats.

The boat has three crossbeams, contrary to popular belief that the front crossbeam can add to factors leading to the boat pitch-poling, many hours of testing in wind tunnels have proved this theory wrong. In fact, the addition of a front cross beam stiffens the boat up completely and helps prevent the two hulls being pulled out of alignment when everything is sheeted in tightly. The superb design of this boat actually gives the boat lots of lift in the bow area to help prevent the bow dipping under a big wave. One final unusual item on this boat is the skegs on both hulls, which eliminates the need for dagger boards thereby making sailing and beaching much easier. The skegs are very long and quite deep which adds to the very good up windward performance of this craft.

The proof that not only is the design of this boat second to none, the plans are so simple and easy to follow that two Quattros have been built by inexperienced people here in Malta and succeeded in finishing first and second in last year's (1993) Malta National Sailing Championships in the Handicap Class, a class which is very much favoured to small lightweight dinghies and not catamarans due to the very gentle summer breezes which are so common in Malta.

The building of this boat only takes about 100 hours, short enough to build over the winter when many sailors do not sail. There are no special tools required. The only serious tools required which would not be found in every household toolbox is a jigsaw and a planer. I must at this point emphasise that the boat is not built from a kit but from actual plans thereby making the boat even cheaper to build. The total materials required to complete the job are 7 sheets of 4mm ply, 1 sheet of 12mm, 5 - 7 kgs of Epoxy Resin and enough cloth to sheath the boat to give additional strength.

The first thing is to join 2 sheets of ply together to get the 16 feet length of the boat. The two outer edges of the ply become the gunwales and the shape of the keel is then drawn onto this joined ply. After cutting the correct shape the 2 halves of the boat are joined together using the most simple of all building methods - stitch and glue. The great advantage of this building method is that after 4 or 5 hours work, you end up with a shape which actually looks like a boat. This gives the builder a psychological push to complete the boat as he can see definite rewards after such little effort.

The next task is to cut out the bulkheads. Due to the small size of the boat, this task is completed simply and easily. The bulkheads are then inserted, "sewn" in place, and finally glued. Once again, the stitch and glue method is used to hold the bulkheads in place until the glue has cured. Then two "beam boxes" are made. These are the reinforced areas where the two main cross beams which hold the two hulls together will be attached once the boat is completed.

Once this stage is reached the second hull is brought to the same state and then the two main cross beams are fitted to align the two hulls. At the same time the two skegs are fitted simultaneously and once this is completed both the hulls are sheathed with cloth and epoxy. The longest job of all is the sanding and filling to achieve a good finish. I was extremely careful when I reached this stage and now most people think that I own a fibreglass boat as the finish on the hulls is to as high a standard as most factory new GRP boats. The two hulls are then dismantled from the main cross beams and turned over so that the decks can be fitted. Some of the fittings are installed before decking, for example the chain plates and rudder fittings, and once the decks are completed the final job is to fit the front cross beam, and there you have a very easy to build, fast and successful racing catamaran.

A question I'm asked many times is why build out of wood. The answer is simple - the weight to strength ratio of wood is by far better than any other cheap building method, especially GRP. This 16 foot racing cat can be easily hand carried by 2 adults when the boat is fully rigged - just try doing that on your Dart.

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The Boatbuilder's Wife

From-Multihulls, 2000 By Tonnae K. Hennigan

We visited our new sailing catamaran today at her moorings on the Fraser River in Vancouver. I found myself inside the forward hull lockers unscrewing nuts, washers and backing plates and putting them back on; while my husband called instructions and held the screws tight from our dinghy outside the boat. I felt right at home, and relished "getting down and dirty" to do the job. Three years ago, such a task would have been unthinkable for me. These things were done my husband, assisted by his buddies, if need be. Certainly not by me! How times have changed. I was press-ganged into the job because I couldn't resist the lure of having a shiny, new boat three times the size of our monohull that would give us more than twice the speed while providing comfortable, even luxurious, accommodations.

Here's the story of a boatbuilder's wife, a boatbuilder's assistant. It was a beautiful sunny day, the day after New Year's, and we were in the boat shed, applying the final exterior paint to our boat. And as my husband put it, "How many couples do you think are boatbuilding on a day that's really still part of the Christmas holidays?" the thought being that we two are unique, and special. We had devoted almost every week night and every weekend for a year and a half to working on our new getaway vessel. Each Friday night before our weekly dinner out, we felt compelled to put in at least three hours to earn the treat. We figured we had definitely set ourselves apart from the masses and the herd instinct along with the shared 'flus, shopping frenzies, media-driven judgments and mass hysteria over national and international silliness.

It all began in 1996, when Garett started with the Chinese torture, dripping into my unsuspecting and highly prejudiced mind detailed explanations of the irrefutable advantages of multihulls a slow but persistent process of sedition. By the end of the year, I was ripe for a boat revolution but hadn't considered the possibility of buying another boat seriously. We had acquired as our 25-foot Northern monohull for a song, and Garett had made extensive renovations, improving her safety, comfort and solo-sailing capabilities tremendously. More space, speed and conveniences would be nice; but even to move up to an older, 30-foot Catalina we were looking at a debt of about $30,000. No thanks. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Garett had been looking at multihull designs he could build quickly without spending a fortune. Slowly, the drawings and specs came out, along with Chris White's book Cruising Multihulls and a video on Derek Kelsall's designs.

But building our own multihull suddenly seemed possible when Garett got the study plans of Richard Woods' newest design, the Gypsy a 28-foot cruising catamaran. According to Woods, who designs and builds in Plymouth, England, it could be built in 1,200 hours for about $12,000. As Garett had tripled the value of our monohull with his ingenious improvements, we calculated that even if materials were a little more expensive for us than they were for a professional builder with years of contacts and sources, we could build the Gypsy for only slightly more than what we could get for Wave Dancer, and we could handle the extra cost as we went along. As it turned out no surprise to anyone who's ever built a boat we would spend almost three times what we expected.

But eventually we would launch a beautiful yellow and white cat with more than three times the space of our last boat and more privacy than a 50-foot monohull. One of the beauties of the Gypsy is its three separate living spaces the cuddy cabin and two hulls. Thus, the head, placed amidships in the starboard hull with Garett's "workshop" forward and a spacious berth aft, offers complete privacy from the cuddy with the galley and saloon-cum-double bed, and the port "bedroom hull" with its two roomy berths.

The rubber hit the road in February, 1997. Living in central Vancouver in a small "view with a suite attached" fits our land-based needs just fine, but you can't exactly embark on a major construction project on your roof deck! The neighbours might object. So we rented a nearby garage and Garett began sawing, drilling, mixing epoxy, filling, sanding and coating to build the cuddy cabin, nacelle, rudders and cockpit. Now, almost two years later, I viewed my job as boatbuilder's assistant as relatively easy and undemanding. I measured, mixed and strained the System Three paint for the Lemmer turbine sprayer and, while Garett sprayed it on, I cleaned the measuring cups, stir sticks, strainer and containers, and prepared the next batch. No, I was not a "sissy wife" doing typical Suzy-homemaker type jobs. My tasks since we had moved our base to a large tubular shelter we built in a boatyard 30 minutes from our downtown Vancouver home included mixing resin and epoxy; wetting out roving and matting; filling umpteen screw holes; meticulously painting the underside of the cuddy cabin and the interiors; hand and power-sanding; and filling, sanding, filling, sanding endless pinholes while applying primer. Added to that was the never-ending tidying that kept our workspace sane and made it so much easier to tackle the jobs.

Three years ago, I would never have believed I would spend over 900 hours helping my husband build a boat. I was not a "handyman" woman. I could just barely handle a hammer and a basic screwdriver. No mechanical inclinations whatsoever. Even after two years of boatbuilding I still had problems connecting several long extension cords. ("Hmmm... lemesee...this end goes to what end???") At home there was a clear delineation of duties: I did the grocery shopping, prepared food, cleaned, decorated, and lusted after new furniture and renovations; Garett maintained and improved our sailboat and home. We own our condominium; and have a new kitchen, bathroom and refinished hardwood floors thanks to his engineering capability, know-how and attitude of "If a thing's worth doing it's worth doing well and as quickly as possible." He doesn't mess around or get distracted. Until a project is complete, he puts his total energy into it and works long hours on it.

So you can appreciate that once the boatbuilding started in earnest, according to average standards, we didn't have much of a life. But the way I see it, we had a much better life. Now that Light Wave is launched and we have been cruising on her for 52 days, I recall those glory days of building with a pang of nostalgia, just like empty-nesters who look back fondly on their early years of struggling and sacrificing to house and feed their kids. The fact that we actually created a cruising catamaran with our own four hands seems to both of us a miraculous accomplishment, as in fact it was, considering the time it took and the fact that we both had full-time jobs and other commitments. I am still amazed at what I learned and the skills I developed. I now know how to use a hammer and power screwdriver. Not only do I fix things myself, when we visit friends I actually head straight for the workshop to snoop around and examine the tools.

Garett put in most of the 3,500 hours it took to build our vessel to his exacting standards. I hate to take any credit, but I'm sure my constant reminders (a.k.a. nagging) "I don't want a home-made looking boat!" had a big influence on this. I contributed 900 of those hours, and friends an aggregate of 100 when we sought objective opinions or needed help in turning over the hulls, aligning the components or joining the cuddy cabin to the hulls.

I've gained tremendous confidence in my ability to tackle mechanical jobs that had always before seemed insurmountable. Now I know I can do it myself, or find out how and do it, and that assuredness is reflected in my mental and physical well-being. But a most unexpected benefit has been the effect on our marriage. My mate and I worked closely for 24 months, with one worthwhile objective. Starting work on a boat after a hard day's work is a challenge for anyone, but Garett always found it much easier to get down to it when I was with him, even if I didn't do as much as he did.

Many times I'd arrive at the shop to find him working away in a rather ho-hum fashion, but within an hour he'd be moving around energetically measuring, screwing, sanding or painting. The synergy generated simply by my being there in the shop with him mixng epoxy or paint, painting the interior, underside, or sliding hatches, going for last-minute supplies, or running and fetching provided the extra oomph and boost to energy that he needed. If Garett had had to do it all alone, we both agree it would have taken a lot more than an extra 900 hours or one year's time that I put in, as he just wouldn't have had the same impetus to keep at it. So, I gave him my support and also my (extremely admirable) efforts to learn something I had no inclination whatsoever to learn, in addition to the physical tasks I accomplished. Our marriage is stronger as a result, our mutual respect greater.

So, here we are, having enjoyed our vessel for a year, getting ready to go on a 10-day cruise to Desolation Sound before school gets out. Our first winter of weekend cruising with Light Wave on the mild West Coast introduced us to the beauties of a well-equipped catamaran. cruise on the mild West Coast. Now that I don't have to "go below" to get warm or prepare food, I find I enjoy sailing even more. I have yet get to seasick, something which was a fairly regular occurrence on rough days in our monohull. The almost 360° view from inside our cozy cuddy cabin, warmed by a lovely catalytic heater, is something a sailor would never expect; and on days when I'm not up to braving the elements it's just lovely to sit in the saloon by the heater reading or watching the sea and sky backed by our coastal mountains or Gulf Islands through the forward windows.

Light Wave offers a powerboat's panorama and comfort with a sailboat's low-cost and relatively quiet driving force. As the winter winds drive up the West Coast, we experience the sheer joy of speed, and now look forward to trying a new/used spinnaker on our sail north in the lighter summer winds. We haven't put any electrical "perks" on Light Wave yet we don't have a knot meter, depth sounder or GPS but through dead-reckoning, watching our wake, and gleefully comparing ourselves with monohulls and even the occasional multihull that eat our dust, we know we're flying. It's wonderful!

But best of all is the sense of accomplishment and pride of ownership we experience every time we sight our pretty vessel neatly tied to the dock at the foot a street in the upper-class Vancouver "horse district" called Southlands. Palatial houses on a small island lie across the rivulet from her moorings; while horse paddocks and a grassy meadow form the land boundary. This seems fitting: the gracious homes provide a magazine-cover backdrop to our beautiful vessel; the horses offer good company, cadging the occasional apple or carrot when we pull in to unload provisions; while the meadows and untamed surroundings somehow suit a vessel built to capitalize on the forces of nature.

It took two and a half years a long time, some would say. But the time would have passed anyway, and look what we've got to show for it: an attractive, seaworthy boat that gives us the space and safety we need to enjoy cruising in comfort and occasionally take friends along on day-trips to the islands on idyllic, sunny summer days; a getaway vessel that provides the speed of a powerboat with the grace and cost-savings of a sailboat; a decided increase in our net worth; a deeper, truer bond in our marriage; a lifestyle of living in greater harmony with nature with the wind, waves, tides and currents; a vessel that is such a joy to sail that she beckons us like a Siren out beyond the confines and craziness of the city to find that incomparable, priceless peace only a cruising sailor can know.

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Finishing Off a Shell

By Richard Woods From-South African Yachting, 1992 Amateur Boatbuilder

"We've just bought our new boat! Well, actually its a shell, just hulls and decks bonded. Still - nothing to it, should get it in the water in a couple of weeks" Well, we all live in hope!

Over the last year we have been busy fitting out our 9-metre Sagitta catamaran in a plastic shed in our garden. Even though we have built many boats during the last 12 years I am still over-optimistic about the time it takes to build a boat-so this article should really be titled "Do as I say, not as I do."

Apart from the cost savings, one of the main reasons for finishing a boat from mouldings is that you can plan the interior to suit your own needs. However, before you get carried away, remember that tried and tested ideas are more likely to work than radical ones and that your builder has built many boats before, so the standard lay out will probably work best. Having said that, everyone has his own ideas.

ACCOMMODATION

You will have already decided how many bunks are needed, how sophisticated the galley and chartroom must be, and how many people the saloon should seat. However,the actual placing of these requires a good deal of thought. Thc first and most importaut thing to consider is the position of the sea bunks. When you are miserable, tired, wet or seasick (and you will be sometimes) then the prospect of a dry, warm, quiet berth at the end of your watch may be the only thing that keeps you going. Generally, the best bunks will be aft where there is least motion and as high above the waterline as possible (water sluicing past your ear, just a couple of inches away, is nerve-wracking to say the least). We prefer to have a bunk that is not near hatches and is difficult to get into.

Although a nuisance in harbour, it means the off-watch crew can sleep undisturbed by the navigator or cook Because a conscious effort is needed to climb into it there is no chance of sitting near it with dripping oilskins. As a result, in all our years of sailing and living aboard, we have never had to go below to wet bedding. We also prefer to keep the main bunks away from the galley smells, whieh helps prevent seasickness (but makes it harder to get breakfast in the morning). If your boat is big enough it is a good idea to reserve one as a 'wet' sea bunk, where the standby crew can rest while in oilskins.

ERGONOMICS

If you are planning an ocean voyage you should remember that most traditional navigation will be in the morning, at noon and late afternoon, in other words at meal times. Therefore try to have the galley separate from the chartroom and do not expect to use the chart table as a food preparation worktop! Although a saloon is great in port, it will be rarely used at sea. Generally, a roomier one implies a bigger boat than strictly necessary and you should carefully weigh the advantages of say, being able to sit opposite each other, with all the disadvantages that the extra length entails. Most people automatically ask for standing headroom, but in many cases this is not necessary. Again, if you insist on it, it could mean that you will have to huild a larger boat. 1.5 metre is still quite satisfactory,while 1.75m is the minimum for standing (remember you never draw yourself up to your full height unless you are filling out passport forms) and 1.2m is the minimum to be able to sit comfortably. If you expect to live aboard for some time you should try to have an extra-dry locker for your shore clothes This should be big and airy enough to prevent them, from getting mildewed. Of course all boats should have space for putting away wet oilskins

INTERIOR AESTHETICS

Unlike the outside of the boat, which you will never see when you are aboard, you will have to live in and look at the interior. Thus you should take as much care in its aesthetic appeal as you would when decorating your house. Try for variety, not only in colour, but also in the materials and textures used. After visiting a few boatshows to get ideas you could be forgiven for thinking that only boats covered with teak-faced ply are real boats. In actual fact an all-teak interior is usually dark and boring, and often heavy and of poor quality into the bargain (unless the very best plywoods are used all the cost goes in the teak veneer and none into the quality of the glue or inner veneers). Colour schemes are a matter of taste, but generally matt finishes are better than gloss, except for areas that need a smooth, heavy duty coating like parts of the galley and soles. Incidentally, matt black is very good at hiding rough wood, glass joints, etc, since it reflects no light.

We prefer to sail rather than paint, so on our Sagitta we decided to have a plastic-looking interior even though there was some wood inside. Most plastic interiors look cheap, but with care a radical colour scheme can be quite effective. Powerboats seem to be years ahead in this respect. We spent a long time looking at glossy magazines like Boat International before deciding on our yellow cushion/ blue table interior. It sounds alarming, but actually worked very well. Best of all it is very practical since the whole boat can be hosed down and wiped clean inside and out.

WEIGHT CHECKS

All boats should be kept as light as possible. This is obvious for all multihulls and racing boats, but it is still important on cruisers, for every kilo saved in the structure is an extra kilo of carrying capacity. It is surprising just how much material you use when fitting out, so any extra thickness of ply and timber soon mounts up to a considerable weight penalty. All timber and ply fitted into the boat should be as light as possible and built in, adding to strength wherever possible, preferably in two ways at the same time - e.g. the cabin sole can stiffen the centre board box or keel while forming the top of the water tank, etc. For fixed soles, worktops and tables 9 mm is usually adequate, while 6 mm is enough for fixed lockers and even seats.

Similarly timber sizes can be much less than commonly found. Although 2" x 1" should be used wherever body impact is likely, 1" x 1" or even less can be used elsewhere. However, you should remember that the thinner the timber used the better the joints must be. Three o'clock in the morning, with the wind blowing 40 knots, is not the time to start wondering whether the structural glass work (the first laminating you ever did) is strong enough, so I would strongly recommend that you buy all the mouldings you can from the yard, even if they are fitted loose. Apart from the time saved they will probably have nicely rounded corners so will be easy to clean. Generally mouldings save on structural building time and cosmetic finishing.

In fact, if taken to the extreme, a d.i.y. project can easily turn into a m.i.y (manage it yourself), whereby you employ subcontract carpenters, electricians, upholsterers, painters, etc. and do none of the actual work yourself. True, you pay wages, but you save on overheads, profit margins, etc. At the end of the day you can call the boat professionally finished, usually with some insurance premium saving, always with an increased resale value. You can add GPS, microwave oven, spinnakers, etc.later, but you can never change the basic shell. Every time we build a boat we say "this time we will only buy the best," yet every time we buy some cheap gear and regret it later when it needs replacing. "Buy it once, buy the best," is a good motto.

NEIGHBOURLINESS

It is pointless ordering a shell until you have found somewhere to finish it. Although your shell is essentially watertight when you collect it, it is still not a good idea to finish it in the open or afloat. Building under a polythene sheet in the garden is better than nothing, since it means you can leave lights on in the evenings, leave tools and materials outside instead of putting them away every night, while the boat is secure from prying eyes and neighbours' helpful(?) comments. Also of course you don't need to worry about rain. The best answer is to have a proper shed, preferably close to the water. We live in a row of six houses, three of which are owned by professional multihull builders, so our neighbours are more tolerant of backyard building than most.

You won't be so lucky, so before taking delivery you should discuss your project with your neighbours and explain how long it will take (double your estimate to be on the safe side). Also explain about the noise and smell. In return be polite, avoid grinding on Sundays or late in the evenings. Finally, invite them all to the launching party and tidy up the remaining rubbish as soon as possible!

FAMILY PREPARATION

Obviously your family will know all about the new boat, but they may not realise just how much material and equipment will go into it. We spent a year with our spare bedroom full of rolls of glassfibre, boxes of foam, foam-backed vinyl, sails, deck gear, boxes of electronics, etc. Towards the end the boxes spread into the lounge and hall as well. As I have said, fitting out the interior always takes longer than you expect and generally longer than making the hulls. So the simplest layouts and fittings should be used wherever possible. For instance, drawers are very hard to make, sliding locker doors slightly easier and shelves or open lockers the easiest (and lightest).

Although you may be tempted to rush the final fitting out because your proposed launching date is drawing near - don't! You only build a boat once, whereas you sail it for years and a few weeks extra at the building stage will make you much happier later on. Remember only one boat builder ever launched on time and that was Noah! ( And if you recall he didn't have time to fit the sails or engines!). It is always a mistake to go sailing before the boat is finished for the final fitting out, painting, etc is hard enough on the water, but almost impossible if you are living aboard as well.

CONSIDER THE LAUNCH

Finally, after all that work, the great day arrives when you have to get your boat to the water. Over the years we have always managed against the odds. Our first cat was 5 m wide, but it was built on the wrong side of a 4 m-wide lock gate - so we had to make a short set of beams just for the launching. A few boats later we had to get our 6,5 m-wide Banshee 15 km by trailer to the sea. It sounds easy enough, but there were two houses on the road only 6 m apart... Although Sagitta was built by the water, it was 3 m below us even at high tide. No crane, or delivery lorry for that matter, can get to our house, so we had to use methods not seen in England since they built Stonehenge to launch it. We made it, but it was the hardest two days of the whole project. Finally, remember what they say - "If it survives the launch it will survive anything!"

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Flat Panel Building

By Richard Woods From-South AfricanYachting, May 1990

THE phrase 'home-built catamaran' conjures up an image of part-completed, slab-sided hulls festooned in polythene and plastic sheeting, plumbed into the main drainage system and providing a weekend hobby on a long term basis for land-based dreamers who no more want to go near the water than they want to fly.

This is unfortunate because the true picture is of seaworthy boats sailing the seven seas, safe, secure and substantial. These boats make no headlines because they are built without fuss and often sail off to far horizons and are undistinguishable from production boats. The key to successful homebuilding lies in the choice of designer and his plans.

There is no hope of producing a professional-looking boat if the design and plans are amateurish. Surprisingly, success is also unlikely if you work from plans of a production boat modified for home-building. The only sensible approach is to buy plans that were specifically drawn for home-building by a reputable designer. We have built 10 catamarans for our own use in the last 10 years, ranging in size from 14 to 35 feet and using tortured ply, foam sandwich and cold-moulded construction methods among others.

Yet we are by no means professional builders. Currently we are building a 30-foot strip-planked catamaran in a temporary shed in our backyard. A job we hope will be easier now that we have a decent jigsaw and power plane. Partly due to our own lack of facilities we always try to design boats that anyone can build. As far as we are concerned this means designing boats that use flat panels as much as possible.

The photo shows that this does not mean having a boat that looks like a box. Admittedly this boat (our 35 foot Banshee) has round bilge hulls below the waterline (where you cannot see them). What you can see, however, is a boat made of flat panels. The term flat panel is mis-leading because it really refers to single curvature panels. These single curves allow a huge variety of shapes to be built in almost any material.

THE LOGIC FOR BUILDING IN FLAT PANELS

Although round bilge hulls have the least wetted surface area for a given displacement and so are considered the optimum shape, a close approximation to a round bilge hull can be achieved with a single or double chine hull. On the smaller boats a dory hull shape works well, simply because the amount of boat in the water is so small. Any aspiring home-builder is most concerned about building the hull. This is understandable since it is usually the first job to tackle.

However, anybody who has built a boat will say that building the hull is the easy part, it is the fitting out that is difficult and takes the most time. As an indication the two hulls of a production Banshee can be built in under 100 hours, yet it takes 2500 hours to finish the boat. In fact it takes longer to install the electronics than to build the hulls!

These figures also show how big a commitment boatbuilding is. The average person works 2000 hours a year at his job, so 2500 hours is the equivalent of 15 months full time work. It is a major commitment not only for the builder but also for his family. The first catamaran I built (a 30-footer) took less than six months to build single-handed, while working 40 hours a week at my job as designer. The motivation came from the fact that until the boat was finished I had nowhere to live, let alone a boat to sail.

Building in a yard where others were doing the same also helped - problems shared are problems halved. Since a boat takes such a long time to build, any techniques that can speed up the building should be seriously considered. Speed in building should really be given a higher priority than say ultimate sailing speed or comfort. Many monohull builders learned about single curvature panels when they built multi-chine steel hulls. Steel is unsuitable for multihulls under about 100 foot (aluminium under about 60 foot), so multi hull builders' materials are wood and fibreglass. Plywood is usually considered the automatic choice for home-builders. Fortunately with the advent of epoxy glues many of its drawbacks have been overcome (although epoxy has some of its own, mainly because it is highly toxic.)

However, more builders should consider building fibreglass hulls. The two normal reactions to this comment are "you mean foam sandwich," or "you need a mould." In fact, there is a simple way of producing a hull with a conventional gelcoat finish without using foam or a complicated mould. The main disadvantage of foam sandwich, apart from its cost, is that the outside surface is rough. It needs a lot of filling and sanding to get a smooth hull. Note I said smooth, not fair, because it also requires a lot of care to get a fair hull since it is difficult to judge the fairness when fitting the foam sheets. Changing a shape from a double curve to single curve helps fairing up considerably.

Compound curves are supposed to add extra stiffness, but multihull topsides are always fairly flat, so the extra curvature adds little. The main attractions of foam sandwich are its light weight and high strength, but this comment has to be qualified. There has to be a certain thickness of glass on the outer side of the foam to protect the core from impact damage. Top monohull race boats now have skins so thin that only the paint keeps them watertight and they cannot be lifted by slings round the hull without being crushed. On multihulls under about 35 foot the use of a foam panel as opposed to one of solid glassfibre usually results in only a minor weight saving. The saving is irrelevant on a cruising boat.

Even we are surprised at the room inside a modern, wide beam multihull. A boat over 35 feet for family cruising is probably too large. We would not recommend a boat over this length for an amateur builder. Thus most home-builders should be able to use the solid glass flat panel technique. It may sound difficult and unfamiliar but making the panels is extremely simple. The photographs of a 27 foot catamaran under construction show the basic stages involved, while the table shows the time required to build the boat to a sailaway state.

MOULD

The "mould" is a flat worktop made of glossy melamine- or formica-covered chipboard (the material used for shelves and kitchen worktops). Resin does not stick to these surfaces so gelcoat can be applied directly. It is not necessary to make the whole hull side in one go. Making them, for instance, in eight-foot sections means it is easier to heat the workshop and less space is required until they are finally joined together before final assembly.

After laminating the hull panels stringers are fitted and then they are cut to the exact sizes given on the plans, offered up to the bulkheads and glassed along the keel (and chine if necessary) and to the bulkheads. This procedure only takes a few hours. Although the joints will need filling and sanding the topsides have a perfect gelcoat finish, often better than that of a production boat.

POTENTIAL

As you get more used to the concept of melamine flat panel moulds the potential uses begin to grow. Simple moulds can be made for galley worktops, steps, shower compartments or lockers. Both male and female moulds can be knocked up quickly. All joints need rounding to allow the moulding to release easily; inside joints can be made with plasticine, outside joints of timber battens rounded off. Only the timber needs coating with a release agent before laminating. I have suggested using simple melamine moulds to help fit out the interior because often it is not the external appearance that gives a home-built boat away but the internal finish. Flat panel topsides help fit out the interior more quickly, since making something fit to a straight line is easier than having to scribe to a curve. Besides being more practical a moulded gelcoat interior makes the boat look professionally finished.

DECKS

Most decks have single curvature and need to be foam sandwich for stiffness. This is particularly true on bridgedeck cabined catamarans because, although a flexible deck is usually strong enough, it is disconcerting to walk on. It is seldom worth making moulds for decks. Normally we cut the foam to size, glass the inner skin and offer it up to the boat, bend it to the required camber and then glass the outer skin in situ. This results in the usual rough finish, but a layer of surface tissue and a quick skim of filler should be enough since non-slip deck paint is used over most of it, hiding small lumps and hollows.

SATISFYING

Building a boat yourself in your spare time is a satisfying and for some even a pleasurable experience. However, for most people it is the end product - the boat and the sailing that are important, not the building. You will learn many new skills and, more important, will know how to maintain and repair the boat when required. Many beginners have completed large projects successfully. Often organisational skills are more important than boatbuilding experience.

One final comment. It may well take years to build your dream boat. However, once completed she is often a dream for only three years: year one is spent getting used to it, year two enjoying it, and year three is spent realising what could be different. Then one starts looking for another design. So when building your boat bear in mind that you will probably sell it again and resale value is important. So remember that spending 10 percent more money and 10 percent more time and effort while building can increase the resale value by 50 to 100 percent.