Guide to Choosing a Secondhand Sailboat for Beginners
If you want to go sailing what is the best way to get a sailing dinghy? Maybe build but most will buy a sail boat secondhand. How do you pick a good used sailing boat? We show you how.
Sailing boat
FAQ – Building a strip canoe or kayak that can handle some impact in the surf or with rocks. Cedar Paulownia
IMPACT! How hard is your boat going to hit something. For most of us it won’t be very hard at all. So it is better to save weight. For expeditioners they may require a lot more from their boats. What are the strategies one can think about?
FAQ Birdsmouth masts – butt joins OK? Scarfs are recommended.
A birdsmouth mast is a nice way to make a simple tapered hollow round mast. But what is the best way to join the wood. We show you how and why.
Are old, cheaper or free boat plans good value? 100 plans on CD?
Building boats from older plans often adds a lot of labour and materials cost. Some old plans are great. But many are utter rubbish. Having a living designer or other people building the same boat is really useful for most builders.
FAQ – Paulownia or Kirri – the “newest” lightweight timber for Boatbuilding.
We first started to see Paulownia becoming available from Plantations in Australia around 2004. Well before the current boom in its use for framing and hulls of dinghies, yachts and other boats. Paulownia is a very lightweight timber from China that provides one way of building lightweight boards and boats. How to overcome its weaknesses and make use of its strengths.
FAQ – Crimes against boatbuilding – never put a plywood deck join on top of a deckbeam
Never join boat decks the way you join up panels in a house. Cracks and big failures will result.
FAQ – Materials for strip planked boat or canoe in Australia – for lightness and beauty.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
Repair of old and antique plywood class sailboats for Racing or Cruising
OK … I decided to keep the old racing dinghy and fix it up. How do I put my effort in the right places to get the maximum results? A grab bag of methods for joining plywood, working out sizes, making centreboards and rudders and more.
Q and A. Step 1 – Do I restore an old cheap racing boat or ditch it? International Cadet
When is it worth fixing an old racing dinghy and when is it best to ditch it?
Massive Nosedive Video, but all is fine sailing an Oz Goose – New Speed Record?
Racing Cancelled. Videos of some high wind and high speed thrills with the simple and cheap to build Oz Goose sail boats. They might look like a box but they they are quick.
Cheap lug rig tuning and setup – simplify but sail fast.
In the Philippines imported boat parts look extremely expensive compared to local incomes. So we have worked hard to eliminate them as much as possible or replace them. What is easy, cheap and good for racing performance? The result is a big way to save money.
All Videos – Goat Island Skiff – Fast, Family Sailing, Boat Building
All the Goat Island Skiff videos – 70+. Goat Island Skiff at speed, cruising, being built, rowing and passing a lot of other boats – you can see it singlehanded or carrying a whole family.
All Videos – Oz Goose – OzRacer and other “Squareboats”
All the videos for the Oz Goose and other similar boats OzRacer, Ocean Explorer, PD Goose. Families sailing, speed videos, capsize, racing. USA, Australia
OzGoose – Inexpensive family sailboat or club training and racing boat
The Oz Goose is multipurpose. It can hit speeds of 13 knots, is an excellent trainer and teaching boat with three adults aboard or a family sailer with two adults and a bunch of kids. It is lighter than a Laser Dinghy and a fraction of the cost
Up to date rigging guide for lug rig sails on opengoose.com
A great article from the Open Goose website on setting up and tuning lug rigs of all types.
Goat Island Skiff Calendar 2015 now available
Year four of the high quality Goat Island Skiff Calendar is out!
Boats from the USA, France, Uruguay, The Netherlands and Greece
Oz Goose launch and sailing Video
Video – Ian Henehan worked out this 12ft Goose Version and launched it into 20 knot winds. You can check the video to see that this is probably correct. It certainly is, despite the poor camera angle which changes a few times the boat is fairly smoking along
First sailing photos of low cost sails for Storerboats
After a week or so of bad sailing weather, Daniel in Uruguay got out on the water in Piriapolis harbour to try out his new sail from ReallySimpleSails.com in the Philippines. The idea is to halve the price of sails for my plans so that it is even more economical to build a storerboat. This can save $300 plus
Affordably Priced Sails for Storer Boats
ReallySimpleSails.com saves $300 or more on your Goat Island Skiff, Oz Goose or Oz Racer.
Custom sails for other boats are also available and will represent a cost saving on your boatbuilding project.
These are full quality sails that we all have worked hard to keep the price down on without reducing quality.
S-12 Club, new dinghy design launched (very light wind)
The new dinghy design is now called the S-12.
Launched into light winds, there’s not a lot to report, but a photo essay. And some comments about the staying of the rig and keeping boats cheap and simple.