Michael Storer Wooden Boat Plans

The first New Zealand Goat Island Skiff has been launched by Ian Howeth.

He has taken a year to build it as spare time became available.

It was launched during the Xmas break

Golfballs go further because of those dimples on the surface. Would it make sense to have those dimples on a boat hull?

It is not quite that simple as this little article attempts to explain.

AlexN, who is building an Oz Racer and I drove up to Toronto at Lake Macquarie for the Classic Boatfest 2011. I think I will go again in 2012 and try to have a boat to sail around.

Shows on the water are the nicest type and this one has good access for small sailing boats and canoes.

We met up with Bruce (Woodeneye on the storerboats forum) who had is “for sale” Goat Island Skiff.

How much fibreglass is really necessary to prevent damage to a plywood boat for most users?

For a long time I’ve been suspicious that both designers and builders are in a never ending spiral of more and more heavier fibreglass.

I argue, with data from the Turner designed Jarcat, that the weights of glass are clearly excessive for most uses and users of small boats.

Jack is rather happy with his newly launched Eureka Canoe.

He has built it as a woodworking project over the last couple of years as time became available from his busy architectural practice.

Anyway … a bunch of nice photos and some of Jack’s writing.

More videos of John Goodman’s Yawl Rigged Goat Island Skiff.

He is trying out some rigging variations to see if we can simplify the building of the yawl rig version.

At the moment this is inconclusive, but wow, he got some good videos

Michael Storer will be attending the 2011 Woodenboat Show in Mystic Seaport. He will be running a workshop for families building the Quick Canoe – choice of either the electric or the paddling versions along with Duckworks and J.O. Woodworking.

The Tecpaper.de website is displaying my boat plans, Jim Michalak, Platt Montfort and others. Stolen Property They have not contacted any of us  about any agreement and are displaying our plans and photos without permission. High Prices They are also selling them at three to four times the price my agents sell the plans at! [...]

Dete Hasse and his family built a Goat Island Skiff in Geelong, Victoria a while ago. He has just written to me about his experiences trying to sail on Port Phillip Bay and more happily on the recently refilled (the drought is over!) Lake Eppalock.

Also he makes some good comments about reefing and how it changes an overpowered boat into a much more rriendly beast in stronger winds.

The Goolwa Wooden Boat show is on the coming weekend.

Storer Boat Plans and Duckflat are having a joint stand as per normal.

The show itself is free this year with 250 boats entered in events or on display.

A rare beast, a circa 1960s 12 square metre sharpie with some of the original rig is for sale. I am not involved, but in the interests of helping preserve a little bit of Australian sailing and boat design history I would like to help find it a good home.

The 12sq metre (heavyweight) Sharpie came to Australia for the 1956 Olympics. NZ first, Oz second.

However the boat totally changed the approach to the design of Australian skiffs. Thought you might be interested to read my understanding of the design issues and influence.

How the Sharpie name went from the USA to Europe and then to Australia – and how it changed our boats.

There are lots of tips for building and designing boats on the net.

“Rules of thumb” are often quoted to help with the calculation of how much sail or how much keel or centreboard area or how big a mast is allowed to be and many other areas. Can a boat be stretched or shrunk or lengthened?

But how correct are they? Are they the best guide?