First Plank

The second stringer is on.

Here's the Luke Foster 10:1 Stepped Scarf Pro Jig. Just add skillsaw.

And finally, the first plank.

Centre Case and 1st Stringer

I've been getting a hard time for not posting, but we're trying hard to be finished for summer and I do have to spend time studying and writing.

Here you can see the inside of the centre case sides.

The stem and bulkhead one went on.

Here's our centre case. We've made a lot of changes from the plans. Our centre board is a much higher aspect ratio. It comes in around 1m by 300mm and 30mm thick. The board's laminated from 20mm strips of cedar.

In these two you can see where the blocks for the uphaul and downhaul fit. And the notches for the thwart, which is only going to be 200mm wide and on the forward side of bulkhead five, instead of the aft side. We're changing the seat layout to give us more space in the cockpit.
And here's the first stringer. Boy it's fiddly, and it takes ages coving around every joint.

Mods

Here we're gluing on the third and final seat front stringer. We've angled the seat front for a more sporty feel - eight degrees to match the coaming. We're having a rounded off seat front instead of the normal over hang on the Nav. Thats's the reason for the three stringers.

At the stern we've done away with the aft deck and changed to a scooped out transom.

And some more framing goes in.

Bulking Up

Going 3D

The IT Department

There's a hole in my boat.

S for Sports

This is the 'sports' version, because we've taken John's option of the racing sloop rig. We've also made a few internal changes to the seating, transom and centre board.

Building started at the beginning of May.

Here's the bottom scarf joint cut.











And some of the bulkheads gluing.













The building jig going together.















And the bottom panel cut out.

A Bigger Boat

Hi, I'm Luke Foster

Here I'm planning to post updates as we build and sail our Navigator dinghy.

By way of introduction, I'm 20, living at home and still studying, business particuarly direct marketing. I'm the oldest in a family of six kids.

I've been sailing since I was seven, starting with Optimists, then building a Firebug dinghy Pilgrim with Dad when I was 11.

For several years now I've owned a Starling dinghy, and the family also has a Frostply and another Firebug.

This has been great fun. These are peformance boats, which are set up to be raced. So we go out and have a blast, but its hard to cruise or explore. There's no way to take the whole family out. And rigging and unrigging takes an age.

Time for a bigger boat.

We've been long time fans of John Welsford's designs. So after hearing so many rave reviews we settled on building a Navigator. With a view, or perhaps hope, of building or buying another in the future.