The first items arrived. Plywood, fibreglass tape and epoxy resin.
Margaret really isn't that short - she's doing a FOO impersonation. (Foo used to show up on vacant walls, always looking over a fence, and with a caption "Foo was here". Graffiti seems to have become more exotic in latter years.)
Over twenty years ago (are we that old??)
Matthew built a few boats. One of them was a small catamaran for Marg. Well she maintains that he overstressed the structure when sailing and the poor craft died a sad and lonely death. Now that Marg has some time to become acquainted with the joys of boat building we found a design for a small dinghy on the net and the adventure? began.
The design chosen was a D4 by
Mertens-Goossens Inc. This design was chosen as it is a small pram dinghy capable of being rowed or sailed and I guess you could even use a small outboard motor. It is similar in design to many other small pram dinghies such as the Sabot. It should be noted that the free downloadable plans are in picture format only and that you should use these plans only if you feel confident in marking out and interpretation of the sketches. If you have any doubts there are many low cost plans available that may suit you better.
Having selected and studied the plans we looked for a materials supplier. We had been looking on the web for the plans and had come across many great sites. One of these was
BoatCraft Pacific in Brisbane. We ordered the epoxy resin, fibreglass tape etc. and were surprised when it arrived the next day!
The plywood was a little harder. Checking with the local suppliers we only found one that offered to order in Pacific Maple marine plywood. This had been chosen as it was available at a far less price than the Hoop Pine marine plywood normally stocked by the merchants. After waiting a fortnight the supplier rang to say that they were unable to source the plywood and could only offer the more expensive ply.
We had noticed some mention of ply woods on the BoatCraft web page but had thought that the cost of transport would have been too great. A call to the company resulted in an order being placed. We have found that BoatCraft have been very helpful and efficient with orders being dispatched within 24 hours of being placed.
