A new boat building project

[skovian]

Carolina flare sportfishers are one of the prettiest things ever to grace the surface of the water to my way of thinking. There aren't many plans to build this type of boat but I want to change that.

I recently registered a domain, www.opensportfisher.org. The purpose of this is to have a forum where plans for this type of boat are freely available for download to anyone who wants them. Anyone can use them to build one of these types of sport fishing boats.

At this time, there is not much content. There's just a forum with a DelftShip file and some questions. As these questions get answered I will make drawings that will help clarify the construction process. I don't have any CAD software or experience, but I'm good at things like MS Paint and GIMP.

Once sufficient data exists, and probably not before next spring, I plan to start construction and thoroughly document the process. I will post those pictures to the opensportfisher.org forum so that people can see what the finished product will look like.

I hope that some of you will want to visit the forum and give your advice.

Thank you,

Michael

[brokensheer]

what you are trying to do is post (your) boat designs here for all to use for free?

or

are you wishing for people to upload a design by some one else and have them here for others to grab for free kind of like a napster of boat designs,,,

If its the later you may be setting yourself up for some legal issue as if I were to find one of my designs I sold to a client for the purpose of building one ( a ) boat. and they hung it up for others to take for free we would have a legal problem

may wish to look into this a bit further!

[skovian]

I'm not asking for anyone to do anything illegal or unethical. My goal is to have a community-designed boat and have those plans available for anyone who wants them.

I have some experience building dinghys and helping with some George Buehler sailboats and I worked 5 years in shipyards so I have a decent idea of what needs to happen. I just need help with some of the specifics and maybe some input on some other things as they arise.

But, again, I'm not trying to rip off any professional designers and I don't want to steal anyone's intellectual property. This will be a boat designed by boat users.

Thanks,

Michael

[fishocean]

I Think this is an awsome idea! BRING on the info!

[brokensheer]

I'm not asking for anyone to do anything illegal or unethical. My goal is to have a community-designed boat and have those plans available for anyone who wants them.

I have some experience building dinghys and helping with some George Buehler sailboats and I worked 5 years in shipyards so I have a decent idea of what needs to happen. I just need help with some of the specifics and maybe some input on some other things as they arise.

But, again, I'm not trying to rip off any professional designers and I don't want to steal anyone's intellectual property. This will be a boat designed by boat users.

Thanks,

Michael

Should be cool , glad you cleared that up!

[skovian]

Yeah. As I went back and reread what I had written I could understand the confusion. But I'll go further: If anyone ever posts copyrighted plans on my site I'll delete the posts and "out" whoever did it on every forum I can find. That kind of thing puts me at risk and steals from the original designer.

However, so far I don't have much to worry about since nobody has joined. It's new though, and I have high hopes.

Take care,

Michael