Let's build an ocean cruiser

It all starts with an itch. The one that one gets from sanding a fibreglass hull of one's current boat during endless repair cycles. Invariably the question comes up: "would it itch so badly if this were a wooden hull?". Well, here's an attempt at answering that question.

The cruiser i'm going to build is a 5 m (16'5'') plywood construction by the Polish designer Janusz Maderski called "Setka A".

FIVE meters of tiny goodness... people actually build these things to sail across the Atlantic in a quadrennial regatta called "Setka Atlantic Challenge" (there is also a group on facebook). All materials I have come across are, unfortunately, in Polish but there are enough pictures there to make the event seem real ;)
So let's start. First, a set of plans needs to be purchased from the Designer:

(you may notice the drawing is of the centerboard version which I'm going to build first, some time in the future I intend to convert it to a ballast keel version for the greater waters. More on that another time).

Next, the design needs to be checked for sanity (and hackability) in virtual space:

BTW, the amount of hacking can be kept to a minimum, the design is quite solid, I have only increased the height of the cabin by 2cm and made the transition from the cabin top to the foredeck a bit smoother (in retrospect it seems the Designer did the same thing in a similar design "Pasja 550").
Some hydrostatic calculations and playing with the weight distributions convinced me everything is quite optimal as-is in the design. Check.
Next, some room to build the whole thing. My attempts to find some space for rent in the area failed, so I decided to set up a big(-ish) tent in my back yard and worry about temperatures and humidity later :) I ordered a tent from a well known Danish manufacturer and a few weeks later a 250kg package arrived:

Together with my son, my better half and the help of some friends the setup took just a day or two:

Building a simple lofting table, pulling some electrical connections for the lights and power tools took another week or two producing a nice clean work space:

Of course that was the only time that space looked clean and roomy. Very quickly it turned into this:

Since I'm actually already quite far into the build I will recap the the process in detail in other posts and continue to report on the progress. Hopefully regularly and without too much delay since the first step has already been made with this post.

Until then.