Lines drawn, bulkheads cut

I got impatient waiting for the Piccup Pram plans to arrive, so Saturday I went down to the library and read 20-odd issues of Boat Design Quarterly. BDQ has a collection of about 6 plans varying from "study plans" to full dimensions for different boats in each issue. A "study plan" has the shapes and curves, but lacks any build instructions or dimensions of most inner components. I took cues from two boats:

• BDQ No. 25 has a study plan for a 13'6"x4'6" plywood daysailer called Zephyr. I modeled the proportions of my boat fairly close since they are so close in length.
• BDQ No. 42 has full dimensions for a catboat called Sea Gull. It's 15' long and around 7' wide. I referenced its width measurements (scaled proportionally down) when drawing mine since it came with hard numbers and the shape generally matched the other boats I was inspired by.

I also used the following resources:

• Jim Michalek's book Boatbuilding for Beginners (and Beyond) has plans for his 14' daysailer Mayfly, which I followed the bottom fore-to-aft curve (I've got to look up the boat term for this). They were very close proportionally to the curves on Sea Gull.
• I was inspired by the Piccup Pram general curves and multichine hull from the study plans in his book, as I talked about in the last post.
• Some boats down at the UW WAC. Got a feeling for proportions and curves in person.

To view these, you may want to right-click, "view image" because the default formatting scales images and that just destroys line drawings.

This is the traditional view of boat-building drawings. In the upper-left you see a side outline of the hull, back to front. The numbers refer to a station point, where the dimensions should match what is show. Sections 8, 4, and 3 have bulkheads whose dimensions are in the lower-left of the page. The others may require temporary frames to hold them in place while the boat is being assembled. The table in the upper-right lists the length from the centerline to the outer edge of the top of the boat at that point and the same measurement of the bottom flat portion of the hull. The picture in the center could be cleaned up, but it represents what half the hull would look like if you sliced it transversely at that station; only half is shown because boats are typically symmetrical about the longitudinal axis, so you can draw some on the left and some on the right, saving space.

I just finished cutting the transom:

Transom next to the number 4 bulkheads (where the boat splits into 2):

The number 3 bulkhead, which the mast abuts: