Getting afloat

Being out on the water, whether in a lake or the open sea, is a great experience, and if you are a handyman, it is not so difficult to build a small boat which can give you and the family a lot of fun.

You may have looked through the magazines for sailboats for sale, but that is not the way to start.

Or, maybe you want to sail out to sea, or along the coast, or even across oceans. In this case you need a yacht or a sailboat. How big does it need to be? Well, people have sailed across oceans in 18-footers, but I would recommend something like a 30-35 footer for these voyages. But if you want to sail along the coast, anything from 18 feet upward will be fine.

You may want to sail and live on the boat for extended periods. In that case, you will take quite a lot of equipment, and that means more than 30 feet. For example, a solar panel, placed so that it gets the sun is invaluable. If you are in a sea where there is little sunshine, a wind generator is ideal.

You don’t need much equipment at all, though, for weekend sailing, with the odd week away.

One of the easiest ways to get afloat is to build your own Dory, which has a simple shape, and so is easy to build. Of course, you do need a good set of Dory plans to build the Dory easily. Without these it can be a nightmare.

You can build a Dory big enough for a yacht – several has cruised over many of the world’s oceans - but it takes a long time. If you are not sure what sort of sailboat or yacht you want you need to take a look at a few suitable websites and read a few books.