Well here I am, finally getting to build my long awaited boat. I had to build a shed first and that took longer than I thought to get the prefab made and the building permit through council. Anyway that's all behind now and I have started. I chose a small B & B Yacht Design from the States - Their Spindrift 11, as pictured. I haven't built a boat before so I wanted something I could manage to build by myself, something I could sail for fun, row if I had to, or put an outboard on if I wanted.

Here I am starting to loft the hull from the plan onto the scarfed 1-1/2 sheets of 6mm gaboon marine ply. I scarfed the one and a half sheets together before I started to take photos of the build. I found a nifty jig to make for the circular saw on YouTube and it worked pretty well. Got a nice neat 70mm scarf.

The build started by joining the sides and bottom of the hull, stitching the keel line before unfolding the "wings" to produce the hull. Worked pretty well. It was good to have another pair of hands though.

I tack-glued the joins before removing the wire and cable ties. The temporary centre spreader gets removed. The seams on the inside filled with thickened epoxy and glass taped, it was time to fit the gunwales.

I had to work out a way I could bend three slippery epoxied strips around the boat then clamp them in place. I used some ripped down 7mm merbau garden edging rather than trying to bend a 20mm gunwale around a pretty tight shape. Anyway this is what I came up with and after some fiddling around I was able to clamp it all down.

I cut out the transom to fit the 5hp outboard. It weighs 26kg so I'm a bit nervous. I strengthened up the transom a bit too. It gets some support from the seats down each side. The Spindrift is a lot lighter than the Polycraft, which the 5hp came off. I'll see how it goes, maybe I'll need something lighter.

With the hull turned over I'm glass tapping the rounded over seams.

Well that's as far as I have got so far, I'm going to fit the keel today hopefully. I'll post some more progress photos.

Bob Gaston. August 2016.

Editor: Thanks for this contribution Bob, we look forward to seeing the end product.