Home Brew

Nothing better than doing it yourself (unless you're a complete hack like me), and this little dude was done, and done quite well by SA reader Tom. Here's his story. Enjoy.

Hi there, I'm the guy who designed and built the little boat that caused all the fuss in the forum. I'm not really sure who started the buzz, but it has definitely stirred up some interest. The project started about two years ago when I decided that my old boat wasn't going to do what I wanted, no matter how much money I threw at it. I started with the question, what did I want a new boat to do? I wanted a boat that I could trailer, be easy to handle with two people, be light, fast and fun, but above all be dead sexy to look at. I started the project ago with a goal of trying to build a champagne boat on a beer budget. I started to look at how I could keep the costs down - a big step was to base it around an already popular one design sail plan so that I could get high quality used sails at a good price.

Also along the line of keeping costs down, carbon fiber was out the question. 90 % of the layup is unidirectional e-glass with vynlester resin with a half-inch pvc foam core. Low-tech construction, with low weight to strength results. Anything that I could dream up or do myself, I did. As for the design of the boat, I've always loved the look of Paul Beiker's boats - a rounded bottom with a hard chine. This gives good form stability and makes construction easier. I looked at as many small sport boat designs as I could and tried to blend what I wanted out of each of them and put it into my design. I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel, just make my own brand of performance tire.

After a lot of work and no life for two years {no change there} the boat finally hit the water. That's mom breaking the bottle {go mom}. Although we have only sailed the boat a few times, so far its showing good promise.

Please no comments on how bad the sail shape is in the pics, as we were just duct taped and bubble gummed together for that first days sail. For more info on this very tidy little dude, visit Tom's site

04/22/2004