building a catamaran

This collection of diary notes is not intended to replace any building methods, rather supplement the decision-making process of those currently in use.

Our thoughts from the beginning were that this is our yacht and we need to keep this in mind throughout the build. When it comes to how many beds we should have - we planned this on our family when it came to electrical, and water requirements - again it came back to what we wanted.

We soon found that ‘what is thought to be the domain of the rich and famous’ is well within reach of those with time and a very strong drive to achieve, which is very important especially toward the latter part of the build. While we do not discuss any budgets here, it can roughly be deduced by searching the local yacht brokers for your vessel type, then reducing that purchase cost by half to two thirds.

One quickly learns that kidding yourself with this budget figure puts you in hot water, as we discuss in our Electrical section.

We carefully compared 'apples with apples' and discuss our views, choices, and solutions. You soon find that for the average budget-conscious sailboat owner/builder, the design choice is confined to either ‘performance’ or ‘cruising’. Finding a design that carries ‘all mod-cons’ and sails at 20kts, is totally unrealistic.

The book does not contain boat plans.