This is the boat I designed for myself after going cruising to Brasil, by then I was back in Liverpool. I had ideas to build at home but took up employment at the Shepperton Film Studios and for an interior design company. The building place was on an island on the River Thames, I could make frames and rip plys at work, they all traveled on the roof of my 850cc Mini to the boat yard about twenty miles away.
I had worked out that a boat around 34 feet was plenty for my needs. The idea of a self built laminated plywood boat appealed to me, each and every one of those planks you see had to be hand fitted to each other with hand tools, as we had no AC power on the island! I am using bronze Gripfast ring nails to glue the planks together.
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/designs/bahia/index.htm
Made as a model, the design could then be viewed from all angles untill I was sure the design would work when built.
My mother has climbed onto the boat and can be seen on the hull under the canopy.
Roy
I had worked out that a boat around 34 feet was plenty for my needs. The idea of a self built laminated plywood boat appealed to me, each and every one of those planks you see had to be hand fitted to each other with hand tools, as we had no AC power on the island! I am using bronze Gripfast ring nails to glue the planks together.
I named the design the Bahia 34, the picture was ( i think) taken by my dad Robert Henry McBride, using Kodachrome slide film, he probably used my own Canon FT film camera?
The design was self taught and working from a scale model, made from balsa wood, I sorted out the final shapes to things like shear and freeboard. I ended up selling the bare hull on and eventually returned to Cape Town after a tour of work in Sudan. I still have the drawings and a model boat kit could be prepared in 6mm MDF for you if anyone wants to build one?
I might do well to add that since I built the hull in the picture, designs and methods have changed in a big way. Today and thinking of the Dix Design radius chine construction method, hulls can now be built with far less skills and effort and in a fraction of the time my boat hull took me.
Design rights to this set of plans are held by Roy McBride.
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/08/designs/bahia/index.htm
Made as a model, the design could then be viewed from all angles untill I was sure the design would work when built.
My mother has climbed onto the boat and can be seen on the hull under the canopy.
Roy
