In the past few months we've made Pirate hooks... And giant lizard tanks...
Sold bunnies and bikes....
...To make room for new dreams.
Like THIS!!
This is a strip built sailing "proa" which is kind of like a catamaran with uneven hull sizes. Yes, we're probably biting off WAAAAY more than we can chew. But that's pretty normal for me.
I've wanted to build a boat for 8 years or more. I have probably 3 dozen different boat plans saved on various computers. This particular one is called the Ulua by Gary Dierking. There's debate around here on how to pronounce that properly. If you're at all interested in building one for yourself, this is his website, and this is the book we're building from.
These are our other two favorite boats that we were looking at. The first one is the Light Scooner by Phil Bolger. There's a hysterical blog about some builder/sailers with quite a few fun stories. Please ignore the annoying music...
Then this is the other one we were looking at. The Arctic Tern by Tad Roberts. We loved the look of this boat and the plans were free but..... We wanted something we could sail solo and a 24 foot boat just isn't that. It was sailed to Alaska and back and that makes for major awesome points.
So we landed on the Ulua.
I like it.
Our first step was anything but glamorous, but to us (me) it was exciting. Wanting to do something for 8 years and then finally getting to mark the first measurement on wood was like taking the first step on an epic journey.
The road goes ever on and on,
down from the door where it began...
Anyway, this was the first step. Lofting. It is NOT as scary or mysterious as some sites make it seem. If you can follow directions well and know how to use a tape measure and square, you're good. It's basically drafting a graph and then plotting the points along the curve, making the outline of the mold for the hull.
Simple in concept, but overwhelming the first time you see one of these offset charts...
Yeah. That's all you need to build a boat hull.
(These are not the offsets for the Ulua. Buy the book!)
So we got this. The outline for our first mold station. Only 16 more to go!
Tell me now if it looks crooked to you. It totally does to me in this picture....
I'm going to try my best to take pictures regularly and post as we go. I think this stuff is interesting, maybe someone else will too!
ps- I want to put one of these sails on it.
Because I can.
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