I designed the Explorer 18 for Sentinel Boats in Cape Town, South Africa, for series production in fibreglass, from moulds. The plug from which the moulds were made was built from plywood and until now that is the only plywood one that exists. All of the drawings were for the GRP construction method. I have now detailed this design for building from plywood, with build methods suitable for amateur builders. It is fairly standard lapstrake plywood detailing with fibreglass tape to reinforce the longitudinal joints between panels.
This boat is a very capable family day-sailer, able to carry mom, dad and a few kids together. It has a secondary role as a camp-cruiser, with the 9ft long cockpit able to sleep the tallest of adults, with kids sleeping on the side seats.
The spaces under the seats are broken into nine separate buoyancy compartments, which can be accessed via waterproof covers for secure dry stowage.
The rig is gunter in sloop format, with mainsail and jib. The mainsail has a large foot batten instead of a boom, in the interests of saving heads from damage in unintended gybes.
The original GRP drawings were all hand-drawn, before the advent of CAD. Those drawings still form part of the plan set for the plywood version but are augmented by new details that have been drawn in CAD. A plywood components kit will soon be available, cut by CNC with jigsaw joints for panels that are longer than a plywood sheet length.
Nice one Dudley, www.ckdboats.com will be happy to add this design to our plywood kit sets.
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