Thomas Wentworth wrote:
If you think it's ok to steal someone's work, then you are probably too
stupid to design the structural detail properly.

Criminals are, generally, deficient in their ability to reason, somehow.
With no respect for others as a result of faulty social thinking, they
demonstrate an inability to think correctly in other areas.

This usually has to do with some shortcoming in the assemblage of certain
other of their sentient organs. The only true salvation for these types is
for them to realize their imperfection, and ask for inspiration to mend
their ways. The Golden rule is all the guidance a reasonable person
needs. Would you want your life's work stolen and abused, modified and
destroyed, capitalized for profit, adulterated from a good design to one
that kills, using your once respected name?

The lines of a vessel are a compromise in engineering intended to balance
strength, efficiency, capacity, durability, and looks. The equation is not
a simple one.

Would you want to wear a cheap, stolen design knock off life jacket, from
inferior cheap materials using inferior cheap manufacture, to save a few
bucks while you top dance for the sharks? How would you feel if it was
your name stamped on such a Knakawf?

If you really want to design a decent boat yourself, you need to take a
bunch of courses in marine engineering.

You will have to pay for those courses too, purchasing the knowlege for
yourself from it's developers, unless you can reason it all out properly
yourself. Stealing a "look" which you will undoubtedly want to sell as the
original some day, sooner than later, if quality has to do with it, is
shameful, a sin and a crime.

Terry K



Terry,,, when someone buys a set of plans for a Roberts boat. Is there
anything wrong with building more than one boat with the same set of plans?

That decision is for the owner of the rights to the plans to decide.
You could negotiate a club discount. Boat building clubs have a
way of falling apart.

I got to thinking ?? So, say three people split the cost of one set of
plans and start building three boats.

Is that wrong?

Could be.


I have never built a boat. Are the plans like big paper that you lie on a
board and then mark the board and cut the board? In other words,,,, are the
plans a template? I just wonder what exactly plans look like?


I can't speak for any of them.

There are options. Some offer full scale templates, some don't need
them. Some will send you a truckload of frame parts pre built, and
other pre assembled bits and rigging, like stem and knee kits. It
depends on how well the service is developed. You may need to find
pieces like a 4 x 8 fir beam 30 feet long knot free, dry as snuff,
as straight as you want the boat to be, later to be cut up and used
for deck beams, spars, etc. If a man can't make a living at it, all
we will have is old plans poorly copied, and no answers to the one
or two questions the seller might omit, to survey the market. How
would you feel if you had a question asked of you by someone with a
bootleg planset covered in notes by 3 previous builders?

Who would bother developing a constructor support business if the
bootleggers are jerry building look alikes and they all sink, or rot
because one limber chamfer was wrong?

Tables of numbers, called offsets, may be used to draw templates or
patterns on wood to be cut. A number of points are plotted on a
board, then a springy batten is used between nails sticking up from
the dots to produce specific curves.

A major milestone in most projects is the turning of the hull or the
mould, as many are built upside down. That may be about halfway
through the building of the hull. Before you start, you will want to
know if the rafters can take it, a point illustrated in some plans.

If in your basement, you may end up with big holes in the living
room floor, and a wall torn out to remove the project to the
outdoors. All a part of a good plan, possibly.

It is said the hull comprises about 10% of the finished boat, but
that depends on whether you like grey paint, and how many satellite
domes you include, etc.

The plans will be perhaps 10% of the hull cost, and if you can't
hack that, you shouldn't even get started, nor should you trust
yourself to ever get finished.

Boat building is for people with good character and tenacity, and
adequate funding and time.

If you are the sort to succeed, my advice won't help you either way.
Nor, if you're not.

Terry K


If you know, please post ... curious