Boat Design

Lately I've been having trouble finding the "right" design for my next boat build. Been looking for plans for a 17'-19' sailboat with maybe a sloop rig or different mainsail. But everything that length has a cabin and isn't just an open bench plan. I want a sailboat that can seat about 6 -8 people so that I can carry my whole family and maybe another one on the water for an afternoon on a windy lake. So I thought maybe I would have to design it myself. Enter the $5 book from Amazon How to Design A Boat

Turns out, there is a lot of math in boat design! It looks like drawing would be the main focus but it's mostly covering calculations to ensure a goal for the boat. There are some outstanding descriptions and sample drawings for different hull types, lots of different boats from 10' up to 67' long.

I'm kind of a math geek to begin with, I make a living as a software engineer so it's all math all day anyway for me. This book took water physics to a new level. The displacement effects from different hull shapes is fascinating. It's a great read if you're into that kind of thing.

I was looking for more specifics. Like with a 6' beam and a round bottom, how deep should the hull be? Baseline displacement weights how deep below the waterline is required to stay balanced? How deep/long do you need to go before adding a water ballast? I guess I was looking for more general guidelines than calculations.

So the bottom line is that - thumbs up - I really enjoyed this book. But I still don't feel quite confident enough to design my own sailboat. I could probably come up with something on paper with absolutely no confidence in how much sail was needed for that size boat, or how deep it should sit at the waterline. This is an older edition of the book. It's totally worth the $5, if you want the updated versions you will pay more but the facts are still pretty much the same. Check it out if you want too, I'm really glad I read this one. It still gives me a really different approach to reading other plans.