| If you've ever trawled the Internet for free boat plans | | | | now available as a download for less than the price of |
| or free catamaran plans, then you've probably found | | | | a length of mooring rope. Software like this, that |
| the same as I did. It wasn't that I was desperately | | | | enables you to draw up your own catamaran plans or |
| trying to save money, but the Internet is such a | | | | boat plans from your own design, would have cost |
| repository of interesting and useful information that it | | | | several thousand dollars only a few years ago. But, |
| never pays to go and buy something without doing a | | | | thanks to the miracle of open source software they |
| bit of surfing first. You never know what you might | | | | might as well be giving it away. |
| find, after all. | | | | There's a Lot To Learn |
| Poor Quality | | | | To be honest, it takes a little getting used to. There are |
| But free catamaran plans are very difficult to come | | | | so many functions and features that it takes a while to |
| by. There are a few sites that offer free boat plans | | | | get your head round it all. But the pure satisfaction of |
| but, quite honestly, none of them are worth bothering | | | | creating a design from your own imagination then |
| with. Lots of the plans are very poor photocopies from | | | | refining it for speed and displacement with the |
| vintage sailing magazines. They are usually incomplete, | | | | integrated calculators, is difficult to beat. I started in the |
| and totally unsuitable for a self build project. | | | | spring of this year and have been building from my |
| Design It Yourself | | | | own boat plans for most of the summer. She's now |
| The solution, as far as I'm concerned, is to design the | | | | nearing completion and it's only lack of funds that's |
| catamaran hulls or boat hull yourself. Now, if you're | | | | holding it up. But I'll finish it soon and then I'll be the |
| anything like me, an enthusiastic hobby sailor with no | | | | proudest guy on the water! |
| professional sailing experience, you might be thinking | | | | Don't Waste Your Time |
| that you don't have a chance in hell of designing your | | | | I wouldn't waste your time looking for free catamaran |
| own boat. You wouldn't know where to start, would | | | | plans or free boat plans on the Internet, you'll get much |
| you? | | | | more satisfaction from designing your own craft. That |
| Software | | | | way you'll get the boat that you want, not some |
| Well that's what I thought until a guy at my sailing club | | | | hackneyed old design dreamed up by some gut over |
| told me about the latest boat design software that's | | | | fifty years ago! |