Folding Trailer Catamaran Construction and Plans

Aimed at the amateur boat builder, simplicity and speed of construction with readily available and proven materials was important. Ply/wood/epoxy composite was chosen for its strength, very important for a trailer boat, ease of use as most tools required will be found in any handyman’s shed, and with a 2 pack polyurethane topcoat you have a craft that will still be going strong in decades. The rudder is foam core/glass/epoxy construction and the mast saddles are glass/epoxy composite. The first epoxy/ply boat I built was launched in 1988 and has spent its life on the water and is still going strong. Bringing this boat home with you makes it so much easier for those routine maintenance jobs that all boats require and not having to pay for marina storage saves a small fortune. Ideally, keeping your boat under cover at home means it will still look like new for years.

Building the boat does not require a strongback or temporary frames and can be built in a garage or carport with much of the work performed at a comfortable working height by setting the steel for the trailer on stand and building the boat on these. The trailer can be cut out and assembled on a flat floor after you have built the boat. Most fairing and painting is done on a horizontal plane as the hulls and pod can be easily turned over. Indeed, you will not find a comparably sized trailer boat that is simpler or faster to construct. An amateur builder should be able to complete the whole project easily in 2000 hours with a well finished boat. You may well find you can do it in half that time. Assuming you can weld there are still some jobs you may have to outsource. I had all the foam for the upholstery and beds professionally cut to size and my wife did the covering. The clears were professionally made and no expense was spared, using the best product on the market (Strataglas), and cost over $2k AUD. You will need the services of a machine shop to turn some metal bits, drill large holes and sandblasting, which cost me $400 AUD. Estimated building costs including plans, basic fitout, (no electric anchor winch, second hand motor and sails, cheap clears etc) $20k AUD, and a comprehensive fitout $35k AUD as seen in the photos and specifications.

There are over 100 pages of Cad A4 plans detailing every individual panel and part to be fabricated, and illustrated building notes are includued as well. There is no lofting required, just measure from the edge of the ply sheet for each individual panel, cut it out and you actually end up with a kit boat ready for assembly, The hundreds of construction photographs on CD are invaluable. Trailer, wiring, plumbing and upholstery plans are all included, as well as launch and retrieval instructions. All dimensions are metric and if you’ve only worked in imperial you will not find the transition that difficult, and you won’t ever want to go back to imperial. The comprehensive materials list means everything you need will be on hand when you need it and saves many days chasing around to get this bit or that. It also gives you buying power and allows you to take advantage of sales when they are on. You may well recoup more than the costs of the plans with the money you save. Study plans aren’t provided as all the information you need should be found on this website, but please email me with any queries. Advice is included in the cost of the plans. You can phone me too, but please email first to arrange a time as world time zones come into play. Our time zone is GMT +10 hours.

CASA CAT

Folding Motor Trailer Sailer Catamaran

CONSTRUCTION AND PLANS