Well for all the folks at Boatdesign.net this has been a couple of very interesting weeks just gone by. Firstly we were all surprised by the news that Sven Yrvind has decided to build a new boat that he calls Ex Lex, it reminds me of a Matt Leyden’s – Little Cruiser http://www.microcruising.com/lc1.htm – which by any definition is a rather small compact boat. Sven for personal reasons decided that the “Ten” project was no longer attractive to him. I must say that I like his new little boat even though I thinks it’s “tight” but that is my personal taste. http://www.yrvind.com/present_project/ Anyway on the BD.net threads of “Yrvind” http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/all-things-boats-and-boating/yrvind-39341.html and “AIT Around In Ten” http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/all-things-boats-and-boating/ait-around-ten-49601.html there have been some very interesting discussions regarding various design proposals. Some of the folks come from an older experienced camp and of course there are the younger guys that have some pretty radical ideas. It was asked of me how did my design process evolve and this is my response, it was not easy! You have to keep in mind that I was one of the original AIT “supporters” way back in 2008 and there were some hectic discussions at times, with some guys actually getting rather hot under the collar and from time to time the insults flew fast and furious. But in between the lines there were some very interesting and well thought out ideas, that did make you think twice about this project. Then in August 2011 I started the thread “Yrvind” and there already my interest had changed in these boats from a bystander to a possible contender. In February 2014 I decided that I am going to give it a go, but there were many more questions than answers and I started the thread “AIT Around In Ten” This thread once again generated some very good information and advice and of course some hectic criticism. However these were the building blocks that led to “Manie’s Ten” http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-building/manies-ten-51428.html that started in September 2014. During these years I finished my boat “Fargo” and I became reasonably proficient at CAD and the Freeship design program. I obviously learned a lot and gained a HUGE amount of experience and knowledge from building Fargo. The TEN I am building at the moment is my sixth boat building project and I also have done some design work and plans for some friends. So my advice to anybody wanting to build a TEN is you are going to have to spend a lot of time studying yacht design and you will have to learn basic CAD. You will also need to get something like Freeship and its programs working. You can only perfect your hull design by playing around with Freeship for weeks on end. Every time you make the smallest tweak on the design you can see what it did to your resistance values and you can see if your hull plates are developable, that’s if you want to build in ply or even steel for that matter. There simply are no short cuts and thumb sucking could cost you your life one day. It is complicated and it does take an awful lot of time if you want to build a TEN for long distance cruising. Keep I mind you are actually building a survival capsule. I am now almost finished with the keel and the outside of the inner hull, as this is a double hulled vessel with floatation and insulation in between the two hull skins. This is exciting because now I can start with the cabin top which will give you a very clear idea of where I am going with this design. I am including pictures of the design process so that it will help future TEN builders.
