I took the plunge and ordered the kit today from Fyne Boat Kits. Looking at a delivery for the beginning of July. This is going to be interesting, not sure how much I don’t know until I make a start. A great deal to learn. But I am sure the kit will give me a good kick start. Goal is to be on the water early next year (2021) and get some sailing in!
Author: PB
Don and Jane emailed the plans out to me today. Going to be a little printing and a lot of head scratching going on today to get my head around how to begin to pull this thing together. Will be doing plenty of studying of early build blogs too!
Is it possible to cross Ocean’s in small yachts? Well, yes it’s possible and there is a long history of people crossing long distances in many different designs of craft.
We have probably all heard of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Row where competitors row more than 3,000 miles across the Atlantic taking over 40 days.
Perhaps less well known outside of sailing world are mini races such as the Mini Transat 6.50. This is effectively the “Formula One” of mini yacht racing, crossing the Atlantic, solo, on high tech 6.50m speedsters.
Long before these challenges took place “Trekka” was built by John Guzzwell, British born but settled in British Columbia. “Trekka” was just 20 feet 6 inches long, around 6m, when 25 year old John set off in 1955 to eventually circumnavigate the World – solo. His book “Trekka Round the World” is a great read and tells not just a tale of sailing but also a world in a very different time. Well worth a read!
Other small craft have been built to recreate “classic” journeys. For instance Don McIntyre, with three others, sailed 4,000 miles across the Pacific in a 25 ft open whale boat recreating the epic voyage of survival of William Bligh and 18 of his men following the Mutiny on the Bounty. In 2013 Tim Jarvis, and 5 others, recreated the epic voyage of Ernst Shackleton sailing a replica of the James Caird from Elephant Island, in the Southern Ocean, to South Georgia, just as Shackleton did in 1916.
It all goes to show that you don’t need a big boat to cross an Ocean, literally size doesnt always matter. What does matter is the design of the craft, the skills of the sailors, and always the cooperation of Mother Nature.
This should make things a little easier! ClassGlobe 5.80 have been negotiating with boat kit providers in a number of countries, including the UK, to enable builders to buy a timber kit with all the plywood parts pre-cut by laser. This should remove a huge burden of marking out and cutting of plywood sheets, hopefully saving a great deal of time and potential for cutting inaccuracies. Could be a great kick-start.
In discussion with the UK agent – Fyne Boat kits.
After considerable deliberation and back of an envelope evaluation I decided to buy a set of plans from the website. I thought it was impossible for me to evaluate the difficulty of building the yacht without having more detail. So I took the plunge and invested the 300 Euros. Even if I don’t go ahead now for cost or time reasons I will at least have a better chance of understanding about what will go into the construction of the yacht.
Being a first time builder I can’t actually get my hands on the plans until after the 1st June 2020. Until then I can work on finding somewhere to actually build it. I don’t have a shed big enough! Problem one!
Pete's Class 5.80 Build Blog 