The Boat Design Process

A select group from the Home Built Boat Rally gathered on the River Hamble today to play with the latest iterations of their boats. In my case, this meant looking rather despondently at the blisters in the paint job on Snarleyow and making a Firm Resolve to do a full refit in the next week or so.

Paul Hadley's Illusion, an evolving microcruiser based loosely on Matt Leyden's Elusion, got under way for the first time under sail, I believe, and scootered along nicely despite her lack of waterline length. Paul has also devised a method of mounting the light board on the transom for trailering, in which one of the bolts passes through both transom and rudder, thus making absolutely sure that it can't fall off on the motorway.

Afterwards, Chris Waite and Graham Neil repaired to Graham's garage boatshed to discuss his new build, Katie Beardie, a sailing canoe designed by Chris. Followers of Graham's entertaining and informative blog will know that that the shape is now generally correct after a non-approved builder modification, but Graham still felt the shape was not absolutely right.

They examined the hull from all angles like the judges in a Fat Pig Contest, and there was much sucking of teeth. Eventually, Chris decided that the V of the bottom had to be pulled in a little, and the curve of the bottom board was a little too full, so Graham will have to unstitch the hull, take a bit off both sides and stitch it all back up again, poor chap.

But the hull shape looks promising and it will be interesting to see how it performs.

This 'still life' was arranged on the Jolly Sailor's pontoon. It reminds me of an old Goon Show gag:

Henry Crun: "Neddy, you will have to go to Brazil. You can use the company bicycle."

Neddy Seagoon: "But Brazil's overseas!"

Henry Crun: "Well, you'll have to get it waterproofed then."