Kaholo Full-sized PlansThe Top Ten Boat Plans of 2012

Boat plans for builders who prefer to start from scratch.  We toil on the manuals and plans every single year, refining, expanding, and making them easier to work from.  We are gradually converting our entire plans library to full-sized patterns. -JCH

1. Kaholo Stand-Up Paddleboards - 12'6" and 14' - $89
Natch!  Proof that just because you can build it yourself you don't have to give up an iota of performance.  These two SUP paddleboards have the pace to race and the stability to cruise.  A tall order;  accept no cheap imitators.  Full-sized patterns for every part are a big help.

2. CLC Wooden Oar Plans - $29.95
When John Harris went looking for a good set of traditional wooden oars to build from scratch, he found only a motley assortment of old magazine articles and sketchy one-page "suggestions" for how to build good oars.  What to do?  Start from scratch.  Here's a lovely spiral-bound shop manual with highly detailed step-by-step instructions and complete plans for oars in eight sizes from 6'0" to 9'6".  You can also purchase computer-cut wooden patterns and the solid timber from us!
CLC Wooden Oar Plans

CLC SailRig3. CLC Kayak/Canoe SailRig - $69

These are plans that convert any kayak into a trimaran sailboat.  They've been around in one form or the other since 1995;  the third edition came out last summer.  John recounts the evolution of this ridiculously fun conversion here.

4. Northeaster Dory - $99
Just loads of boat for the time and trouble and money.  You'll need a router to make up the LapStitch™ planking, but all of the plans-built Northeaster Dories come out beautifully.  New this year is an option, for the traditional cedar-wood-shavings crowd, to build the boat over a traditional mold (shown below).  

Dory Plans Strongback Option

The Chesapeake 175. Chesapeake 17 - $69
Perhaps the best-selling build-it-yourself kayak of all time.  The Chesapeake 17 is a high-volume touring yak that has seen action on most of the continents.  We don't even know how many have been built---plausibly 10,000 of the entire Chesapeake series from plans and kits and magazine articles.  Uniquely adaptable for the boffins who want to make custom tweaks---that's not true of most kayak plans that go together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Fishing in the Wood Duck 12
6. Wood Duck 12 - $99

The essential recreational kayak, with a big cockpit that's easy on the knees---and has room for a tackle box.  At cruising speeds, it can easily keep with the long-legged Chesapeake 17.
 
7. Madness 31-foot Pacific Proa Study Plans - $19

Wait!  You can't even build a boat from these.  The $19 study plans comprise the 25 pages of drawings that we used in-house for the construction of the Madness prototype.  They make very interesting reading, as clearly evidenced by their position on the Top Ten.  The REAL set of plans for Madness is finally complete, with much-expanded detail (something like 40 pages total) and incorporates all of the refinements discovered in a year of sailing this exciting multihull.  They'll be available online shortly, in the $500 range.  
Madness Study Plans

Mill Creek 16.58. Mill Creek 16.5 - $69
An oldie-but-goodie from 1996, in turn based on the double-paddle canoes of the 1930's.  The evergreen Mill Creek 16.5 is an extremely versatile kayak for two (or one guy and a dog).  

9. Chesapeake 17LT - $69
Chesapeake 17LTThe Chesapeake 17's sister, 20% smaller by volume.  Statistically speaking, more humans are a comfortable fit in this kayak than in any of the 50+ kayaks in our catalog.  Just a great all-around performer in all conditions.

Cocktail Class Manual10. Cocktail Class Racer - $110
When this Charles MacGregor design first appeared in The Rudder Magazine in 1939, you needed fairly serious woodworking chops to turn one out.  You had to build a mold, and mill out a lot of carefully-shaped stringers.  That remained true of the design until 2011, when CLC revised and updated the plans and kit.  These plans include full-sized patterns for every part in the boat, and no mold is needed.  

Cocktail Class Racer Plans