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    • Mexico!
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Mission Statement: To build a capable, affordable cruising boat with readily-available skills, materials, equipment and facilities.
If, like me, you dream of getting out there and sailing/cruising the world's waters, this blog/site aims to show my approach to how to do just that. Capable cruising boats should not be limited to the reach of the rich and privileged. If you accept the premise that a 25 year working lifespan for your boat is plenty for you to achieve your dreams (seems reasonable!) and are not concerned about such capitalist constructs as resale value, then the capable cruising boat is within the reach of a meagre budget. Go for it!
The Miss Molly I Adventures - the story of our Pacific cruising -Click Here!!

The Beginnings

18/4/2017

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This is the very first post of this blog that hopes to record the entire process of building a 32ft ocean going sailboat. The intended vessel is an approx. 32ft junk rigged sailing dory, designed by the American designer Jay Benford. The design is one of a family of sailing dories from Mr Benford, that are fairly well-known and are proven ocean-going cruising vessels.

I have some experience of boat building and renovation. Pre kids, I completely rebuilt a ferro-cement junk rigged sailboat and sailed several thousand ocean sea miles with her, and have since built three other small boats - an optimist (for my daughter), a Selway-Fisher Wren canoe and a San Francisco Bay Pelican. This boat is, obviously, a somewhat larger undertaking.

As to the choice of boat for this project, opinions about boats vary wildly - particularly on internet forums. I've made my carefully considered choice based on my experience of boat building, living aboard and sailing, and I believe it to be the right choice for me. It might not be the right choice for others. Frankly, I don't care.

I'll come back to the plans, etc in a later post and will start here with the first hands-on event of the building process. Clearly, in order to undertake such a project, a suitable building site is needed. I am lucky enough to live on a half-acre plot in the north of Germany, and on this plot is what was originally an old nissan hut building that served as a garage. I put a rough concrete floor in this structure about 15 years ago, and a storm about 10 years ago forced some renovation of the building.  I have since renovated 3 sides - the 4th was inaccessible due to a rather large rubble pile and some significant tree stumps and bushes. The building itself is about 5m wide and (I'm going to mix my units here) about 27 ft long - clearly not long enough to build a 32ft boat in. The first job therefore, was to get rid of the bushes, tree stumps and rubble, and put in a concrete base for the shed stretch.

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The Boatshed (tidy front view)
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Side View (with rhubarb and gooseberry bushes)
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Boatshed (untidy back view - with concreted extension base)
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Hard at work (with kids and fairly decrepit mixer)
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