Reply To: Wooden boatbuilding
I have had a set of OK plans since about 1975 but haven’t got round to building one yet. With to much time on my hands I have recently been thinking about building one but have been worried that it might not be a ‘fast’ boat. So following on from the item above and talking to OK representatives at the Dinghy Exhibition I contacted Dan Leech in New Zealand and got the following reply.
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Hi Andy,
It is a very simple construction designed for the home builder. No hand cutting required.
The design fee is $700 NZD which includes computer files to cut the female hull jig/mould out, and get the boat cut out. All the parts of the jig and boat are cnc cut, so no hand cutting required.
The $700 NZD design fee is so you can build one boat for yourself. Any more boats that are built from your hull jig, the design fee is $500 per boat.
The design package includes the computer dxf files to get all the plywood for the hull jig and boat cnc cut out, and 3D CAD images showing the assembly sequence.
You source the plywood, take it to a cnc cutting company in your area, and they will cut your boat out for you. This saves on freight cost from NZ.
The plywood required:
3 sheets of 18mm – good grade plywood for the jig.
4 sheets of 6mm Gaboon marine plywood, and 3 sheets of 4mm Gaboon marine plywood for the boat.
A standard rate to cnc cut a sheet out is around $25 / sheet (to give you an idea).
Regards,
Dan.
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With the New Zealand Dollar around 50p to the pound, by my rough calculations that would make a first boat built around £700 to £800. If anyone was interested in building from the same Jig then subsequent boats would probably be less than £600. Obviously that is without rig or fittings but still a very economical way to get a world class boat on the water and according to the article they only take a couple of weekends to build.
Andy
