I'm joining this great community of builders with very little knowledge (for now) but determined to have my boat built well. The model I chose to build is arguably not the most suited for a first time builder however I wanted something that will give me pleasure to use.
I'm faced with the first obstacle: marine plywood is NOT readily available in my country (Romania). I could get it on special order, import it myself from Germany, France or Holland but that would make the budget for the hull quite unreasonable. Most local builders that use plywood would use exterior grade construction plywood and take special care sealing it with epoxy inside and out. Birch or poplar wood mostly, birch being quite a bit heavier and stronger than the okoume / poplar e bit lighter and only slightly softer. The blueprints call for 9mm okoume plywood. My provisional plan is to go with 6+4mm poplar instead by laminating the sheets before cutting for anything that doesn't need to be bended and laminating in place for the bottom and the sides. What do you guys think of this?
The finished boats presented here on this forum are an inspiration. I hope I will be able to follow through with another successful build of this awesome design!