small boat Building

Building Geelong

How it began

I built Geelong as a prototype for a larger version I still want to build later on. With a simple unstayed mast, inexpensive sail and plywood construction, she sailed well. It takes only 10 minutes to assemble and disassemble. Everything packs inside the hull and I can walk her to the water.

Multihull sailing doesn’t get much cheaper than this. The boat has been a work in progress for a long time trying new ideas, adding bits here improving there. Seeing what worked and what didn’t, she continues to improve with age…

Build Geelong

Life for this boat started on a piece of paper. After much sketching, rubbing out, redrawing, I moved onto the computer to create the hull in 3D.

Once I was happy with the 3D model, I created templates with dimensions for each of the hull panels and transfered them on to the plywood.

This boat is almost as long as your car at 4.7m (15.4 ft), so I needed to scarf 2 sheets of ply together, to cut the parts from.

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!

I lived only 1.5km (1 mile) from where I could launch the boat, so I walked her to the water. It is suprisingly easy to pull, using a homeade wooden trolley with cheap inflatable wheels. Once at the water’s edge, it took about 10 minutes to rig and we were sailing.