Participant’s Particulars

The author of this entry into Duckworks 2001 Amateur Boat Design Competition is:

Barend Migchelsen, 1515 Hamilton Place, Dorval, Quebec, Canada, H9S 1H3.

He can be reached at migchelsen@aol.com, or by telephone at 514-631-6431.

Autobiography

From December 1963 until retirement in July 1986, I was employed as a life insurance agent.  In 1975, when there was time, and money, I started to build small boats and boat models as a hobby.  My only formal training is a boat building “course” of one (1) week at The Carpenter’s Shop in Pemaquid, Maine, USA, where under the guidance of two instructors, a group of five (5) men built a 9-ft. Monhegan Dinghy in 1995.

Intended Use

IMHO, the design is suitable as:

1.                  A sail trainer for junior club members.

2.                  A tender to a yacht.

3.                  A small gunkholer that can be car-topped.

4.                  A simple model for teaching boat and boat-model building in a classroom.

Although these four purposes are woven into the instructions, they are restated here.

The pages of the booklet are printed on one side only.  The opposite sides of the pages are intended for the jury’s annotations.

The entry is written in the spirit of a handbook of a step-by-step track-to-run-on for an aspiring amateur.

For those who like to know how the design was developed, the simple mathematics are explained, and worked out in the Appendix.  However, to complete the project, it is not necessary to digest, or even to understand this material if you don’t feel for it, are not interested in it, or are not up to it.

Minimum Drawing and Diagram List

The compulsory to-scale drawings and diagrams are found in the text when and where it became appropriate to explain them in detail.  I only wished that I were a better draftsman and carpenter.

Full sized Drawing (Not Requested)

There is a full-sized, folded-up (for easy mailing purposes) Body view drawing by each proposal on special one-inch-grid paper that is obtained from art stores.  The contest provided a too beautiful opportunity to pass up to show how technical drawings can be kept simple and still enhance the accuracy with the help of this special paper.  The drawing is based on the fore and aft symmetry of all my designs as developed with the help of a circle arc segment that guarantees maximal strength as stated by the late John Gardner on page 43 of THE DORY BOOK.  The symmetry explains why only half a Body view is used in the drawing.  IMHO, it is interesting to notice how accurate the calculations are mirrored in this drawing.

Comment

It took me three months to put this entry together.  Although it sometimes made me climb the proverbial wall, I enjoyed every moment of it.  Seeing it completed boosted my self-confidence, and the satisfaction of seeing my design system work.  Never a dull moment!

Sheers and Chines (forever),

Barend Migchelsen

 

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