Inital Research and Purchasing the Plans

There are two basic building processes that I considered. The first is the sheet plywood planking method, which involves building the frame for the boat, then cutting and attaching the plywood panels. There is a lot of fairing and measuring to ensure that panels join perfectly.

The second is the stitch-and-glue method. This method is much simpler, and involves cutting the hull shapes out of plywood panels. Copper wire or cable ties are used to ‘stitch’ the panels to each other, pulling the hull into shape (similar to making a garment out of fabric). The panels are then glued together with epoxy fillets, then everything is covered with fibreglass. Since the panels are connected by epoxy fillets, the joins don't have to be perfect.

Because of my limited experience, I chose the stitch-and-glue method.

During my research phase, Glen-L continually turned up as one of the best places to get plans. The forums on this website are quite active, and the members seem happy to answer even the simplest questions. A good Australian website for plans is Bowdidge Marine Designs.

In Australia, there are regulations around registering a newly built boat. For all boats built after 1 July 2006 (in Tasmania), the builder will have to affix an Australian Builder's Plate (ABP). In Tasmania, there is currently no requirement to have a Hull Identification Number (HIN) on the ABP.

I wanted a boat that I could use for trout fishing in the Highlands and for fishing along the Derwent River. I ended up buying the plans for the “Dragonfly” from Glen-L. It's a flat-bottom boat with a shallow V, excellent for lake and river fishing. I ordered the plans for the boat, a set of trailer plans, a stitch-and-glue DVD and a fibreglassing DVD. It only took a week for the plans to arrive - that's fast for mail from the US!

The boat plans consisted of 5 pages of blueprints and one sheet of full-size patterns to cut out various parts of the boat (specifically: the transom, motorboard, middle frame, foredeck beam, bow, and knee - which reinforces the junction of the transom and the bottom).

I was a little overwhelmed when I first got the plans. It's not that the instructions were bad; I just didn't understand a lot of the terms and processes that the plans talked about. It’s a high learning curve for a first time builder, but all it takes is patience. I spent the first couple weeks re-reading the plans and instructions, Googling terms that I didn’t understand, watching Youtube videos for some of the processes, and reading other boatbuilding blogs.