Unfortunately I am not yet a boatbuilder. So my boat (Aloha) is a factory made one. It is 3.5 meters long and 1.35 beam, and it is made of GRP. It has a V bottom at aft, while the cross sections towards bow are rounded. It is manufactured by a company located in Galati (port at Danube) and it costed (only the hull) in 1997 275 US$ plus taxes. There are two versions of the boat: for rowing (mine) and one for sailing which has full deck with watertight cockpit. As this version was more expensive (350 $), and it was without rig and sails, and also I was not sure that it will work, I decided for the first version thinking that if sailing will not be possible I will use it as a rowing boat. They were very kind and equiped the boat with a daggerboard trunk and also delivered me a daggerboard and a rudderboard.

I received all this stuff by the end of February 1997. The next step was to build the rig. I had some aluminium tubes, which I used for the spars, and the sails were cut by me and sewn by mother. Also I had to build the mast step ( a GRP sleeve fixed on the bottom of the boat in front of the daggerboard case), the rudderbox and tiller, blocks for the mainsheet and a lot of other things. 

The result is what you can see in that picture, it is not a high performance sailer but good enough to learn how to sail and provide some happy moments for me and my family enjoying the sun, wind and water in the middle of mother nature, far from this mad world. Unfortunately I live far from sea (I am from Targu-Mures, just in the centre of Transylvania) and I use to sail on a lake at about 40 kms. Look at this sunset.

Hoping that you understood my message (my English is not very good) I stop here wishing you:

Fair winds

Gigi Tolan  copyplus@fx.ro