We've been talking about building a boat for a while now; boat madness kind of runs in both our families. We initially talked about a little power cruiser, say in the 20-22' range. We looked at a few designs, but nothing really jumped out as "The One".
Courtney crewed aboard his brother's Island Eagle, support vessel for the 2006 Shipyard School Raid, and had the chance to look at lots (and lots, and LOTS) of wooden boats when the Raid arrived in Port Townsend. He was still thinking 22' powerboat, and when Tad Roberts offered to design it, that seemed like that.
But then, reality (or rather, that phenomenon that is LIKE reality, but affected by the Boat-Modulated Reality Distortion Field) set in. Like, our car is tiny. Like, a 22' boat would be really expensive by our standards, and take a long time to build, too. Like, a 22' boat wouldn't even fit into the only shop we have readily available. Like, um, maybe we don't want a powerboat.
So we started looking at smaller sailboats, and reading about sailing, and thinking not so much about how MUCH boat would be nice to have, but how LITTLE boat would meet our needs. (Well, Tara was thinking about this all along, but she's the bright one, you see. As she puts it, "I like Small.")
You know, the WWWeb is wwwonderful. There are boats and boats and pubs and big red-- wait, this isn't a Robb Johnson song... where was I? Oh, yeah - the Intarwubs are full of boat plans. Cool boat plans. Millyums of them. And I think we looked at them all, over a few weeks.
When we saw the Shilling, a design by Phil Swift of England's Willow Bay Boats, we both kind of figured she was the one. We ordered the study plans and KNEW she was the one. So we ordered the Full Set Of Plans. (These deserve capitals, because they cost £200!) We had a few adventures getting the plans, but they are finally safe and sound in Canada, and we're planning on getting started building on Boxing Day.
NEXT: Photos!
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