Taping the Hull and Shear Clamp

The shear clamp at the bow is made of 3 strips of plywood glued to the hull with epoxy. Lots of clamps required. At the rear it is 1x4" Fir.

The Bottom and Side panels are are attached with 6" biaxial glass tape.

Stitching it together

Here the panels are cut and stitched together.

This is the new Shop Dog hoping to go fishing soon or at least get a ball thrown for him to chase.

All the panels are attached and starting to look like a boat.

Temporary bulkheads installed to get shape correct. Also built large flat dolly to move boat around on.

The Design

Since deciding to design my own boat this time I started by reading a few books and many articles on the net. My first attempt used the Half Model approach described in "Devlin's Boat Building"

This approach worked but changes required another model and lofting was prone to error so I started looking at design software. The one that seemed the easiest to use and cheapest (free) is Free Ship. This was quicker to modify and produced devloped panels and station dimensions.

I then built a model to make sure the plans were accurate. This picture shows the Developed plates cut out and assembled.

And here it is painted

The Program

The Program for the boat is:

• 18 ft long
• Narrow beam ( 4 ft)
• 25 HP max
• Very light, shallow draft
• Minimal stuff

The Gladesman from East Cape Canoes was one of the prime models. Also the SC 16 from Jacques Mertens as well as his upcoming Glades Skiff model.

Why build a boat?

The question everyone asks is why build a boat?

Because you can get exactly what you want along with the satisfaction of building it yourself.

This is my second boat; the first was a Phantom 16 designed by Jacques Mertens from http://boatplans-online.com/. The build is described at http://dskogman.tripod.com. The picture shows two of my sons fishing in Christmas Bay near San Luis Pass, Texas.

This time I am trying a blog to document the build. I also decided to design my own boat just to see if could.