Outrigger Junior

Product Description

The Outrigger Junior is a lively tacking proa with a huge lateen sail, originally envisioned as an exciting fifteen-foot sailing machine for a proposed youth sailing programme.

The Outrigger Junior is best described as a Tahitian Outrigger: a finely proportioned sailing canoe that's asymmetrical but tacks conventionally, rather than reversing direction like a proa. Lighter than a similar-sized catamaran and with a higher righting moment, the Outrigger Junior is hassle-free, beautiful and just plain fun to sail.

The big lateen sail (165 square feet) provides solid power, which translates to speed – lots and lots of speed. However, the boat is very stable and handles well on all points.

The sail area is vast: ten percent more than PocketShip's, on a boat that weighs one-tenth as much. This ought to be enough for thrilling performance! The boat has a good bit of freeboard and buoyancy forward to handle the big sail and also to ensure that two adults can enjoy the boat without being awash. The hulls displace more than double the all-up weight of the boat and crew, so you're not going to bury them.

Hollow wooden bench seats give the Outrigger Junior fantastic ergonomics. Like all of the components on the boat, the seats are lashed in place. The advantage of lashings for attachments are overwhelming: bolts and metal fasteners concentrate stress and require the components to be reinforced to handle the point loads. Multiple wraps of sturdy twine are far stronger, minimize point-loading and have a natural shock-absorbing quality. Wooden tabs under the beams ensure that things can't slide around. The lashings can be replaced with ratchet straps for fast setup.

The Outrigger Junior is 12 feet wide when assembled, so the crossbeams must be disassembled for transport on a car roofrack or trailer. Set-up time should be under half an hour. If you're lucky enough to have a beach at hand, the boat can stay assembled during the season.

Sailing with the outrigger raised out of the water and flying through the air was irresistible for the photo shoot. The height of the float on port tack can be controlled minutely but it's not the fastest way to sail the boat – even though it may be fun. Ideally, the outrigger just skims the surface. A slight adjustment of the mainsheet, or just bearing off a little, is all it takes to get her flat.

The Outrigger Junior is more work to build than most of our monohull sailing boats, though less than to build a conventional catamaran of the same size. The hulls stitch and glue together quickly but there is a lot of fibreglass sheathing and finishing work: both hulls are glassed inside and out. There is no construction manual for the boat, so you'll need to be familiar with the stitch-and-glue technique and working with epoxy and fibreglass. We estimate about 200 hours of build time to make a first-class job of it.

The base kit includes:

• Pre-cut wooden panels for main hull, second hull, cross-beams and bench seats, all with pre-cut joints, pre-drilled tie holes and panel location marks
• Solid wood for shear clamps and cleats
• Epoxy resin and activator
• Epoxy fillers
• Copper ties
• Woven glass fabric
• Woven glass tape
• Free technical support from a competent builder

What else do I need?

Sailing components

The centreboard case and mast step are included in the base kit, so the sailing components can be added once the base kit has been completed.

This package includes:

• White sail
• Mast blank
• Boom blank
• Yard blank
• Centreboard blank
• Kick-up rudder blade blank and head
• Tiller blank

The sailing components kit does not include the warp – it is in the rope package.

Sailing hardware package

The sailing hardware package contains all of the hardware associated with the sailing rig, including blocks, sheaves, cleats, fairleads, padeyes, tiller extension, pintles, gudgeons and all the required stainless steel screws, bolts, nuts and washers for installing the hardware. Please note that some of the brands may differ from those supplied by CLC in the USA but will be of equal or better quality.

Sailing rope package

The sailing rope package contains all of the line and sail lacing needed to get you sailing once your boat is complete. The package includes the mainsheet, halyard, downhaul, sail lacing and the centreboard uphaul/downhaul.

Plans (not required by kit builders)

These plans contain sufficient information on the cutting of the panels to make it possible to build the boat from scratch. The plans include full size templates for every piece of the boat. Bulkhead and stitch-hole positions are marked and complete details for the sails and spars are included.

The parts-count is higher than some of our designs, so plans-builders should be comfortable reading plans and have access to a full suite of woodworking machinery.

PDF study plans

These study plans are intended to give you an overview of the construction of the boat. They are in PDF format that can be viewed using Adobe Reader. There are two pages and they measure 279 × 216 mm (11″ × 8½″). They can be printed for carrying around.

After credit card authorisation the plans will be sent to the email address put on the order form.