Sailfish

Webfoot

New Member
Cleaning house and found full size plans for a Sailfish. Must have ordered them in my boyhood days as they were addressed to me. Thought it's days were over but looking around the web there seems to various incarnations of the Sailfish plans for sale. Guess some good ideas never die, they just fade into the background a bit.;)
 
Webfoot,

Does it look like this ?
 

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External dimensions look the same. Internal construction uses framed up bulkheads using the keel as a jig. I think there are a lot of Sailfish plans out there not called a Sailfish for copyright reasons. I'm sure yours are the exact dimensions that later became the fiberglass production boat. The old wood boats always seemed to lose some sailing ability when translated into aluminum and fiberglass. Would be interesting to see how a wooden Sunfish does against todays boats.

The plans came from Boy's Life and appears to use a Sunfish sail without the logo. They also had Moth plans which my father had a copy of. Never could get him to help me build the Moth, he later bought a old sunfish in the 80's.
 
Webfoot,

The page I posted is from an original set of Alcort, Inc. Sailfish plans. I also recall the many different plan sets available from various boat designers advertising in the back pages of Boys Life and “Popular” periodicals back a few years.

I wanted to see if you had a set of brand name Alcort plans. The set I discovered is for the 13’ 7” Super Sailfish. There was also a 11’ 7” Standard model at the time. If your set of plans was from Alcort I was interested to see which model they were for.
 
I think these were reprints of construction articles featured in Boys Life. If the dimensions are not from the Alcot Sailfish than I'm a Seamonkeys Uncle. Send me your address at [email protected] and I'll make a photo copy of the article for you. The construction was simple enough to make a good first time father/son project. They also show how to 'armor plate, (fiberglass)' you wooden canoe.:D
 
Found one for sale listed as 'a knockoff.' Still pretty cool.
Well, ok it's not a Sailfish except in the same sense all facial tissue is commonly spoken of as Kleenex, but still those old home-builts were fun to construct and sail nonetheless. You might see if David Luckenbach can put you in touch with the current owner of the one pictured. He might like a copy of those plans to go with his boat.

I'll contact you through your email as you suggested.

Thanks for your research and sharing the info you dug up.
.
 
Hi Webfoot,
I reed that you found plans for a sailfish which i anderstand is similar to presend Sunfish I own a 1972 Sunfish but I love to build a wooden one. I have build 4 small boats,that is what I love to do.
So if you have any plans or know where to get them please email me:[email protected] Thanks georita (george).
 
Do you wish to build a Sailfish or a Sunfish. Personally I think building a wooden Sunfish would be the better choice. You can get a copy of the plans for a clone 'Moonfish' off the internet. This is in most all respects a Sunfish except for the name. For some reason the plans never became popular because they were not "Alcott" plans, go figure!.

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=MF14
 
From what I've read at the Wooden Boat Forum and elsewhere, it wasn't the Alcort boats that were so popular it was what Alcort did for it's customers. They started by marketing plans then included an offer to deliver a pre-constructed boat. Eventually they dropped the plans and offered up the kit made of pre-cut parts like today's toy models. This seems to be the root of their early popularity because the average Joe could now build a boat with few tools and not a lot of woodworking skills, just follow the directions.

Here's another set of wood boat plans in the likeness of the Sunfish ( http://www.stevproj.com/MiniCup.pdf )

Has anyone figured what one of these costs to build?
 
As they say, 'If you have to ask. . . ." Cost is going to vary greatly depending on the quality of materials and number of parts you can dig up such as the sail, mast etc. If you only want it to last a couple seasons you could use scrap plywood. If you want something that stays in the family a couple generations, Marine plywood is gonna cost ya over $55+ a sheet. A lot of people use Exterior Plywood and seem to have good luck with it. Then ya gotta figure if you are going to fully fiberglass or just glass tape the seams. Also figure for a first time project, you will end up making a lot of parts twice to 'get it right the second time.'

I never keep running tally of the costs of a project in my head. As the project ramps up, it kind of reaches a "maximum cash burn" and then tapers off. To do a really nice MiniCup, I'd guess you could throw $1500 in a bucket and use whatever is left for the next project.

I'm finishing up a 'free' Sunfish. What da you think the 'Free' part cost me?, as much as a not free sunfish plus a whole lot more time, but I'm having fun learning. It's a red deck Sunfish. Whenever I see a Blue Deck Sunfish bells go off in my head as that was what I sailed when I was in college.
 
Do you wish to build a Sailfish or a Sunfish. Personally I think building a wooden Sunfish would be the better choice. You can get a copy of the plans for a clone 'Moonfish' off the internet. This is in most all respects a Sunfish except for the name. For some reason the plans never became popular because they were not "Alcott" plans, go figure!.

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=MF14
Thank you very much for the info I will go to bateau.com and see what they have.Again thanks.
georita.
 

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