I am working on a set of lines (hull shape) from Luka the very successful river boat, these hull shapes were taken from Passing Cloud back in year 2000. The new hull lines will be formed on a CAD system and should provide a clip together kit, (Ikea style). Is there any interest in a new thin boat, lots of them are sailed on the river but these boats are mostly old and need a lot of work to keep them going.

Any comments?????

I have Photos of the hull if anyone is interested?

Steve

There's no doubt that, in the right hands, the Passing Cloud hull shape is very quick on restricted waters. Have had a very brief chat with Steve about this and the kit sounds very affordable. 

Wondering if we might see a few of these on the river in the future.

How easy would the kit be to put together, I could be interested steve! :-)

The more I work/think about it the easier I think it would be, although the more complicated the programs become and therefore the longer it will take to make the prototype. I would support the project with a set of on line videos showing the build and how each section of the kit goes together. There would be a modular building plan, so construct the cb case first, then the twart sections, then the mast and shroud bulkheads, this would make most of the build jig. The planks would be pre cut with each bevel marked, plane to these marks and (fingers crossed) the planks should fit in. This is an experiment to a degree, I've built hulls with most of this technology.

You will still need to know how to use a plane, a router and be happy using epoxy resin plus I'm always on the phone. I know people down here that could build them or you could have someone in the sailing club who fancy a bit of moon lighting. I'm not doing this to make money (I've learnt my lesion there), its just a bit of fun really. The first hull I was thinking of raffling to charity...

Steve

Sounds interesting Steve.  I'm an ex-merlin owner but do have a furniture making company in Wiltshire with a CNC router, which I've always thought would be a good way to make a kit of boat components.  Drop me a line if you're interested.