Back in 2005, a customer came down to the shop to visit. He and his wife owned one of our Nancy’s China sailboats and loved her dearly, but they were getting older and wanted something that they could cruise in more comfortably.  This was just about the same time as I was starting to branch out from the tried and true paper on drafting table design to CAD or computer assisted design.  So what I ended up with was a hand drawn boat that had quite a bit of CAD backup, but not to the extent that we would have full computer files including the presentation, lines, sketches, and accommodation drawings; all these were done by hand.  It will be a good comparison to look at these drawings and compare to the newer CAD stuff that we do today.  The computer still has a really tough time with line quality and density; all those were good tricks to the hand drafting methods that I practiced for so many years.  With a hand drawn drawing, you can literally start with one end of the line being drawn and either make it heavier on each end of the line or conversely one can start with lighter pressure at the end of the line and as the pencil moves into the middle of the line press down heavier (for a more bold and slightly wider line) and then lighten back up as you reach the end of the line being drawn.  All this points to the idea that boat design can be for many of us fine art and one needs to practice for many thousands of hours with techniques that help give depth or lend perspective to the drawing.  Another hand drawn vessel, the Camarone 34, will illustrate more in depth this idea of line quality. That design was to my recollection literally my last hand drawn drawing, and while it may seem weird, there are many times that I think one day I will frame that drawing up and hang on the wall to remind me of another time in my now fairly long career of designing and building boats.

Enjoy the little Curlew Sailboat. It’s too bad the customer bowed out for another design because this one would have made for good viewing heeling to an afternoon breeze from the shore. – Sam Devlin

The Curlew 24 is available in study plans. Contact Sam if you would like to see the concept developed.