Re: John'sharpie plans

Posted by Mark Camp on Dec 29, 2005

The Sharpie goes together without much difficulty if you have prior experience with a stitch and glue project, or are fairly handy.

If neither, then it goes together with only moderate difficulty if you (a) stay in contact with CLC's superb phone/email technical support (ie, the eponymous John Harris), (b) learn humility and patience, and (c) read this forum constantly.

As a sailboat, objectively, it has 14 additional construction challenges, by my count, compared to a kayak. They're well worth it (paddling is nice, but doing nothing is even nicer):

(a) daggerboard trunk, mast steps, upper mast supports, skeg, and runners

(b) it is 10 times bigger, by displacement. So, not as easy to store and move around during the build as a 15 kg. kayak.

(c) it is a very low volume product, perhaps retained in the catalog more for historical reasons than out of any current strategic business commitment. So, CLC's incentives to address any marketing accuracy or as-delivered quality issues that might come up (like advertising a full kit but not actually offering it, or dimensional errors in drawings and cut parts, or instructions that are not clear and complete) would tend to be 3 orders of magnitude lower than in a kayak. When they have a staff meeting at CLC, if John's Sharpie ever did come up, someone might be tempted to say "let's not spend money to fix that...John, can't you just handle if someone buys one and calls the help desk?".

(d) fabricating rudder, tiller, daggerboard, masts, booms

(e) sails

(f) rigging the boat.

In Response to: John'sharpie plans by �ric on Dec 28, 2005

Replies:

• Re: John'sharpie plans by CLC on Dec 29, 2005
  • Have to come in here too by Charlie Jones on Dec 30, 2005
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