II: The Selection Process

Last year, when the 'itch' to build our sailboat reappeared, I recalled using the internet in high school looking for canoe plans and finding some Cajun boat plans that were easy to make, cheap, and sturdier than canoes. They were vetoed of course by "that mom," the one that tried too hard to make life one big reality check. She was actually awesome, but at the moment I was pretty peeved. 

As I recalled that chapter of my youth, I wondered if you could find more boat plans online in 2010 then you could in 1999 or 2000. And I was inundated with a world I hadn't had access to in the fledgling years of the world wide web's mass access! I was so inundated in fact that I wanted to instantly build at least two dozen boats... there were classic sloops that caught the eye and seared images of romantic windy evenings off the Maine coast (2000 miles from where I live) to the off-eye beauty of some of Bolger and Michalak's boxy boats; not beauties but oddly inspiring for their functionality. 

One thing that put us on edge at first was the price of plans. We had not considered that cost, which can easily range from $45 for a Bolger design to $350 for a more classic, elegant boat and beyond. Some boats we liked, like the classic 1920's sloops, you can't even get plans for due to the aristocratic nature of those designers. 

Finally, we settled on a Bolger Light Scooner (sic). It had the classic look from afar but was built simply and large enough to take 2 or 3 camping or 5 or 6 daysailing. The shoal draft would let us pull up the centerboard and drag her ashore for the night... but the more we read on her and the closer we got to starting our build, the more reality set in.

First, the design is "character." It looks like a schooner, and is rigged like a schooner, but from first hand accounts is more suited to lakes and semi-protected waters than coastal sailing. Secondly, with the deck layout Bolger specified it would be a tight fit to act as a camping vessel. With the stability issues and our needs taken into account, we decided to nix the "Light Scooner" for a better design, the elegant schooner rig not withstanding. 

Several ideas followed. Then real life came up and work got busy- a good sign for small business, especially in this economy. The boat went on the backburner and before we knew it, we had worked all winter- our boat building target season- and were still without a set of plans to build. As we got back into the selection process, a deep freeze hit us and home repairs sucked our time and money for several weeks. Once we had recovered, spring had hit and we were no closer to a boat or getting on the water than we were a year prior.

Finally reality came to a zenith; we needed practicality for our uses, something that could be built on a budget, and something that could be built before summer was totally over. So the selection was narrowed to Bolger's "Gypsy" design, or a "Goat Island Skiff" by Michael Storer. Both are easily built; both can be sailed, rowed or motored. Both are of plywood; I can't get marine plywood here, but I can get plywood that will work for a dry stored boat used on weekends far easier than I can get my hands on boat builting lumber for say, plank built boats. The grandoise schooners and yachts will have to wait for wealth and time... probably retirement projects, a far distant future for both of us.

And so, we now come to a game of heads or tails... and the build will begin.

Oh, and I have to completely reorganize, clean and set up my garage from the box covered mess it is now to a woodshop before I can begin. Oh, and do a series of projects for my wife before she'll trust me with the cost of building a boat. And so we stand...