What would you like to know? Its 18' long at around 21" total beam. It is a self design/build boat. I'm constantly looking for the "Best" boat, and I figured it was a whole lot cheaper to design and build them myself than constantly buying new ones. I've probably built a dozen skin on frames. (Probably the same number of stitch + glue too) This one is just the latest prototype in a long line of proto types.
She's not built exactly traditional. Kind of a hybrid. Plywood for the major frames with steamed oak in between. The plywood allows me to get the exact shape I want, while the oak gives it additional rigidity. This one also had a vertical web between the forward frames to increase rigidity. I design in FreeShip than export the offsets. I wrote some software that takes the offsets and turns them into SVG with all the necessary cut-outs and curves (inside and out) which I can then cut on my CNC machine. I can go design to finished boat in less than a week.
The challenge definitely pointed out some needed changes. Add a 1/2" here and take away a 1/2" there with a bit more 'V' in her midsection. I need to add about an inch to behnd the seat to make accessing stuff easier. That kind of stuff.
I love building and paddling skin on frames. Unlike Stitch+Glue, there is no mess to the building, just the smell of fresh cut wood and wax. Paddling them is even better. The boat I paddled in the challenge, all 18 feet of her, weighed in at 25# empty. I can throw her on my roof one handed. She's tough. You can throw her off the roof of the truck to the ground with no issue. (She even handled one or two oyster beds with nothming more than a minor scratch to the coating) She's also pretty fast. I'll normally cruise at around 4.7-5.0 kts empty on flat water. I can get her up in the mid 5s, but I can only hold her there for 30+ minutes.
If you want, send me an email, and once I make and test the modifications I'll send you out the SVG for the frames. You should be able to just print them out and glue them to some plywood. If you can tie a knot and drill a hole you can pretty much build a skin on frame.
One more note. This boat was reskinned with 10oz nylon and coated with Cory's Goop from the skin boat store. I'd recommend polyester for the skin, but definitely go with Cory's goop. That is some tough stuff.
