Planing and downwind speed is a practiced skill. But the 8ft OzRacer and the 12ft OzGoose have strikingly different behavour. Goose planes easily in light wind. OzRacer needs a lot more wind and jumps up and down in speed.
A guide for choosing cheaper alternative rigs. Balance Lug, Standing Lug, Sprit, Lateen and more. These rigs typically save a lot of money over conventional sailplans and set up right offer much the same performance. They respond to the same principles. Are boomless sails OK?
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?
Torture boards are used for the highest grade of smoothing for visual smoothness of the whole structure. Fairing a strip planked hull.
Fairing a join between adjacent plywood sheets in a hull or deck.
Fairing a composite structure
Fairing deck substructure. Deckframes and deck stringers ready to take plywood.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
All the best material on boat repairs. From restoring old sailing dinghies for racing, fixing holes in canoe, replacing whole hull panels or the neatest and easiest way of doing a really nice texture of nonskid using sugar. And the non skid can be done in paint or varnish
Kits for Storer Designed Canoes and the Texas Duck which is an Ozracer derived kit.
Opinions about capsize and recovery are worthless. “Safe Boats” do no exist unless the crew practices capsize. We cover the design points.
A two and a half week project – The Taal Stand Up Paddleboard is very different from the majority of SUPs out there.
Light stable and quick with much less effort than the normal surfboard shapes used.
This shows the building method to help those who have purchased plans.
A new design for a “Stand Up Paddleboard”. It is designed for excellent travelling speeds for less effort but retains the stability of a beginner/intermediate board. It can be built much lighter than the standard weight of 12 to 14kg (28lbs). Strategies for major weight saving are in the plan
All our boat plans. Sailing Dinghies, Sailing Canoes, Paddling Canoes, Row boats, Fishing boats, Electric Boats as well as live aboard or camp aboard types.
I’ve been in and around wooden race and recreational boats for a few decades now. As a designer who sells plans I can really only direct people towards the most tried and true methods that work just about anywhere. This article explains a large part of experience that leads to my approach.
A boat for an electric trolling motor will go very fast with 2hp. I suggest that smaller power might be good for a cargo canoe, motor canoe. Not to mention the gas saved!
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.
Peter’s Blog about building two quick canoes. Includes a couple of camping/touring photoessays. The Quick canoe is very quick to build.
A new lightweight 12ft plywood dinghy under development. This prototype by Canadian Rick Landreville. It won’t have a cloud of sail area,but will be light enough low drag enough to hit consistently high speeds relative to other boats of this length.
Cheap Electric Power and a day sightseeing!
The boat is driven easily at reasonable speed with a small electric trolling motor – some are well under 200 dollars. It doesn’t require a trailer. It comes from three sheets of exterior plywood. Costs are down on every front.
And the family is happy! Snohomish Estuary
Just for the hell of it, Stephen put a 2hp outboard on the back of his Electric Quick Canoe.
Watch the boat fly in the video. Speed with little or no fuss. Also a discussion of hullforms for different speed ranges.
Slightly arrogant I!
I visit the Philippines then Malaysia and also find a large community of Filipino boat builders there. I find they know much more than me about boat design and varieties. Stunning mix of different boats from curvaceous to plywood and boxy.
But Gosh … the shapes they come up with!
OK … it IS a rant. But it was prompted by the very legitimate question about why have a mizzen sail.
But sadly I descend into a rant about how expense is a really poor predictor of performance.