Building and sailing a Sango
 island image


These pages document the building and sailing of a Sango catamaran designed by Richard Woods (Woods Sailing Catamarans) Our Sango, begun on 31Dec04, will be a fast picnic/day/camp cruiser for a small family.


19January, 05

At this point I have about 12 hours into the project. Building platform is built, necessitating only a few dollars worth of lumber to augment what was to be found in the scrap pile. Three sheets of damaged cabinet plywood were bought for the building frames ($75). Also I bought some pipe and a tarp with which to rig a cover for the building area ($180). All but one of the building frames have been lofted and cut out and initially faired. Final fairing can happen when they are set up.

Yesterday I spoke with Gougeon et al regarding a wing mast for Sango. Apparently their "A section" spar falls perfectly within the needs of this boat, given length displacement and righting moment. Plans now on order from the fellow who carries them for West System products.



Some thoughts on copying plans...

I made a copy of the lines pattern onto vellum to aid in transferring the shape to plywood. I found yet again that this introduces error into the shapes, despite the high-tech scanner/plotters at the draftsman's shop. The error, in this case, was large enough to be significant and, most shockingly to me, was not symmetrical, which is to say that not only did the size/scale change but the shape changed as well.

Previously I found problems with patterns on my pooduck skiff in this regard, as well as the cradle I built for my daughter.

This leads me to the conclusion that plans offering 'full size patterns' for their own sake are not the blessing they initially sound to the novice. Fortunately, Mr Woods offers them only as an aid to the offsets which constitute the heart of the design. From the offsets it is possible to draw each frame accurately and quickly, relying on the patterns only for guidance on curvature. In this design it is not necessary to loft any longitudinal members like keels or stems, so one can loft the molds right onto the material without needing a designated lofting floor.