small boat Building
Building Geelong
How Geelong originated
Starting out with a sketch
The same as the other boats, this boat started life on a piece of paper. After lots of doodling, I drew the parts to scale then moved onto the computer. I created this boat with Rhino 3D. I love this CAD program, with it I can do everything I used to do with two different programs, and much more.
Marking out the wood
I love working with wood, the smell, the feel. With a large sheet of plywood I feel like an artist must feel, standing in front of a clean canvas ready to create on. Marking out the parts followed scarfing the plywood, and then I could get busy with the jigsaw, cutting out my boat. This boat is long, almost as long as your car, at 4.7m (15.4 ft).
Christening – the first time in the water
As soon as the epoxy had dried, I was off to the water, to see it float. It sat on the water rather than in it. I got in, but without the outrigger, it was very unstable!
Off to the water for real this time
I lived 1.5km (1 mile) from the bay, where I could launch the boat, so I used to walk it to the water. It was easy to pull, rolling on wheels attached to a small wooden trolley I made. The trolley was tied to the outrigger when in the water and helped to ballast it. Once at the water’s edge it took about 10 minutes to rig, and then we were off sailing.
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