Before embarking on any project, it’s best to sit quietly with a cup of tea and mull it over. Well, I must have drunk gallons of tea before embarking on this particular project.
I eventually chose a design that would, as close as possible, fulfil my requirements and, importantly, be towable from my build site to the public highway.
Before committing to buy the full plans from François Vivier, I purchased the study plans for just a few pounds which enabled me to check the lines and fully understand the construction. I contacted the architect directly who proved to be very accommodating with my queries.
I then attempted to estimate the cost. This was informative but time-consuming due to my lack of knowledge of much of the terminology and where you could buy the materials and myriad of fixtures and fittings required. Needless to say, on completion of the build I’d underestimated the final cost.
To ascertain if I could tow the boat out to the road fromI took detailed measurements and surveyed the pinch points of our access track. The final bend before the track meets the highway is very tight and in order to be sure that I could manoeuvre the boat around this obstacle, I used the study plans to construct a full sized pattern of the outline of the hull, sporting two bicycle wheels at the estimated centre of balance of the boat. Then I hooked it up to the tow bar of my pickup truck.
