Looking for wooden Sunfish plans

Austin Race

Austin Race

New Member
Hello, I'm looking for some wooden sunfish plans. I suddenly became really interested in sailing when my grandpa was going to sell his old sunfish this past summer. He said I could have it if I wanted it and so I decided to learn how to sail it and now I'm hooked. I also enjoy woodworking so it suddenly came to me that I could build my own wooden sunfish. I just don't have any clear plans. I've found and have the plans from Mechanix Illustrated, but they don't show/tell you how to build the sailboat step by step. They also don't give any information on what wood/glue to buy, that kind of stuff. I'm thinking of buying an old sunfish off craigslist so I could just take off all the hardware and use it on the one I want to build and also for the sail because to buying all the hardware individually and the sail would be very expensive. I just need some good, clear plans for the actually sailboat itself. If anyone has any leads or has even build one themselves and could help me- that would be awesome. Thanks,

Austin
 
Question pops up from time to time. There are no plans for a wooden Sunfish.
They came prebuilt or in kit form with materials cut to shape in a do it yourself
kit. The only way would be for someone with a wooden Sunfish to pop off one
side off the bottom and get the dimensions. I don't believe there is enough interest
for someone to put the effort into this although it would be cool to have a plan
created in .DFX or .DWG format. The other alternative is that the Sunfish is pretty
simple and you could take the outside dimensions of a Sunfish and pretty much
guess where internal bulkheads go without much problem. That is if you have a
little boat building experience. If you can't build a keel box or mast step in your head
I suggest you make a study of some simple boat building plans first to get an idea
of general construction techniques.

As for the glue, back in the day they used glue that came in powder form called Weld Wood.
You have a choice of a wide range of glues now days.
 
'Last I heard Weld Wood, a resorcinal glue, is still available. I have a little, but the need to make a bond that's stronger than the wood itself hasn't come up. :cool:
 
I would love to get my hands on a wooden hull to take the measurements, but it hasn't worked out so far (haven't found a wooden hull so far on craigslist around here - NC). We do have the kit installation instructions so if we had those measurements you could make a replica but with epoxy. I think that would be a very fun project. A while ago there was a post on this forum where someone was taking measurements, but he never finished the project (or at least never posted again). What a shame!
 
Being a bard chined bull, I would think it'd be fairly easy. Why cant you just measure a glass hull? Its not going to be class legal anyway and you might be able to improve on the design as well.
 
I think the idea is to make a accurate replica woody even though you'll not see the internal
structure once it's done. If someone had pictures of the internal structure you could draft up
something really close going off the pictures provided the tub area, keel box and mast step area
are clear enough to copy. External dimensions could be taken from someone's boat if a request
were put out on this forum. The tub and splashguard are different on the woody compared to the
glass fish.
 
Well, it's not a Sunfish, but building one of these would be fun and good practice, and if you live in New England there might be a nearby fleet. There is a link to where you can buy the plans for $50. Cape Cod Frosty Class Association

If you can come up with a plan for something like a Sunfish it would be more versatile but a really big project. The advantage of building your own wood boat would be you could make a taller transom so you could use the "new " style rudder. Wood fish used shorter (sailfish ??) rudder fittings which are harder to find.

Have fun.
 
Austin,

I have a set of the assembly instructions that came with an Alcort wood Sunfish kit. I will mail you a photocopy for $5, free shipping. E-mail me at [email protected] if you are interested.

Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
 
I'm assuming the hull shape is slightly different between wooden and fiberglass hulls.

If working from a wooden hull, I wouldn't want to cut it into sections. There really aren't that many pieces in the wooden sunfish, according to the kit instructions. I would remove the top and measure the dimension of each piece: hull top, two bottom pieces, two sides, and keelson. Bulkhead width and height at centerline and the sheerline. That's all you need to replicate it.
 
Austin Race said:
Yes, thank you for sharing that. It's given me a better idea about the frame inside the boat as I haven't found a photo yet of a wooden sunfish without its deck on.
Click to expand...
There's one on this forum. It may be found in last summer's case where a fallen tree holed deck and hull.
 
Gads, I forgot about the Moon Fish. Close enough to the Sunfish
that there's not going to be any real difference other than a few inches
longer. If you've got the Sunfish hardware already this would be a nice build.


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