Thomas Veber wrote:
Hi all,

After building a simple plywood dinghy to test my capabilities, I now
feel
confident to go on and realise an old dream: To build my own sail
boat. It's
going to be trailer-able and around 15-16 feet. With centerboard and
a
little cabin with sleeping capabilities for two and a half.

I have searched the net, read a lot, and found many nice designs in
this
category. But then I realised... Why not take it one step further and
make
the design my self?

I have Googled some more, and found Carlson Designs "Hulls" program
and
started playing with it. Fantastic that you can get such a program
for free!

But I know, that designing a Hull is one thing. Designing a seaworthy
and
yet beautiful hull is another. And then designing centerboard,
rudder, rigg,
cabin, deck and so on is another thing. How do I know that the sails
will
not tear it all apart in the first breeze? How do I ensure that the
sailing
capabilities will be Ok?

For this I am now asking here for any good advice, books, web pages
etc.
which can help me. I have no particular time-frame, and I will rather
do
this good, than ending up with a useless boat after spending
thousinds of
hours in the shed building it.

Best regards,
Thomas

Sure, do it, but not alone. I designed my own 20 footer a year or so
back, and even though I have built a few dozen SmallBoats in the last
few years, I brought in a professional designer for the 20 footer. He
went over the numbers and made a couple of reccomendations to adjust
the shape of the bow, cockpit placement and design... etc...
Just a suggestion, Scotty