Posts under ‘Design’

All is not howitzers and roses on the boat design front.  My little cartop cat, Slipper, is proving a tough nut to crack.
When last I talked about Slipper’s deficiencies, I was planning a couple of “improvements.”  Over the last few days, I cut back the length of the rudders by four inches, and put fences [...]

I’d been waiting for over a week to take Slipper on her first sail, but the weather hadn’t cooperated at all.  Yesterday afternoon, the winds dropped unexpectedly, and as soon as Nancy got home from work, I hooked up the trailer and away we went to our neighborhood launch ramp.  Our sons were both away [...]

I’ve been desperate to try out my new little 14 foot cartop catamaran, but not desperate enough to tempt fate.  For a first sail in a new sailboat (and particularly in a new design) winds should be fairly light.   If you take a new boat out into even moderately heavy air, you’re asking for [...]

A young man in Costa Rica recently bought a set of Slider plans.
He tells me that there are few sailboats there, and wondered if Slider would be a good boat for learning to sail.  I told him I thought she would be very good for that purpose, since she has no vices.
Any boat intended for [...]

Slider’s first sistership hit the water for the first time on Saturday, February 20th, 2010. Dean Pacetti built Honu (Polynesian for turtle) at his home in Florida. I should mention that Dean was the second person to buy plans for Slider. At the time Dean bought his plans, I’d only completed half [...]

Slipper proceeds toward completion in fits and starts. I must admit that my second attempt to design an original kind of boat has been a bumpier road than the design of Slider.  With Slider, everything was very conventional, except for the in-hull seating on a boat that small.  Even the unusual sprit-sloop rig was [...]