Custom Design for Clients
We also undertake custom design work for clients. The scope of this work has been varied. In most of this work the intellectual property rights remain the property of the client and of course these designs are not for sale as stock plans. In some cases however the client has agreed the design or a development of it may offered as a Stock Plan and a suitable arrangement is made to accommodate the fee paid. Our smallest custom design is an 8ft dinghy, with a most difficult design brief. Others have been for fittings such as transom boarding ladders, vang struts, and modified hatch covers. Also we have prepared a drawing for a replacement ballast keel for a 34 foot yacht and similar work.
Design 96 “Kashmir” was designed for Ashley Cranfield of Victor Harbour and has been described elsewhere in this site. She is indeed a fine vessel and is a source of satisfaction to us and of pride to Ashley.
The history of the design and construction of Design 88 “Spirit of Acorn” for Paul Stuart has been superbly described in the site www.spiritofacorn.com and has been just as well and faithfully built by Paul. She is a small keel boat with a ballast keel and the time spent in examining the site will I assure you be well rewarded in the extremely useful information available there for any one with an interest in boat building and small yachts.
Design 23 is our smallest custom design. The design brief specified the dinghy should be light if not ultra light, that it should be capable of being stowed on deck under the main boom of a East Coast 31, be a “load carrier” able to be rowed and sailed as well as utilising a small outboard and be very stable lightly loaded and fully loaded. Above all she must look smart and “shippy”. I can tell you we laboured over the lines for many hours before deciding to have a crack. We built her in two skins of double diagonal western red in moulded ply over a batten mould and gave the hull several coats of two pot clear polyurethane. Then came the terrible decision to saw her in two to enable her to be stacked under the boom. It all worked and was soon in use at RQYS and constantly used and admired in a cruise from Brisbane to Dunk Island and return. People on other yachts in the anchorages used to watch us pelt the forward section overboard followed by “the other half”, then climb aboard and fasten them together and set off with the crab pots to get tomorrow’s tucker.
Later we took GRP moulds off her and made, used and sold 11 of both types, some of which were finished off by the purchasers. CRIKEY we had a lot of go in those days.
Design 98 a displacement strip planked Trailable O/B cruiser for the Gippsland Lakes built by Brian Minter for his family use.
