Wizard
by Ralph M

When Chuck emailed me and asked if I would share about building my boat I reluctantly said I would, so here it goes: …
I had been surfing the web and looking at boats designs for a long time. I narrowed it down to Erik Lerouge's Vik70, or Richard Woods Wizard catamaran, both designers are top notch and have exhalant reputations. The long and short of it was that the Wizard is more family friendly and with a wife that’s not mad about sailing and two small kids it seems a bit better for us.

The wizard plans are well drawn easy to follow and come with full sized patterns for the hull (male mold). I decided to build the hulls using a female mold, I gave it a lot of thought and asked every one about this... Yes even the designer and got the same answer its up to you either way is fine.

Mr. woods did say if I was to use a female mold I would need to add about a half inch to the patterns to allow for the planking.

At this point in my build I am very glad that I decided on the female mold method. It’s easier to set up, all work is done flat (using gravity not fighting it) at a good working height. Glassing the outside of the hull on the male mold would be no problem, but to glass the inside of a small hull like this seems like it would be a good way to go swimming in epoxy. With the female mold the inside is glassed first then the two halves are put together and taped.


The two beams that will be used for the strongback. The MDF that is used as the forms. The largest hull pattern was about 17" x 45" I got 4 pieces 2 x 5 by using one 4x10 sheet of MDF


Frames set up and planking started.
the planking is tongue and groove sometimes called "speed strip or Quick strip". I started the planking near the center and worked my way out. I used gorilla glue (Polyurethane) to glue the strips together, I fill the groove of the strip to be added with glue then press it on to the tongue of the last plank. This means that one plank needed to be tongue on both sides to work out in two directions.


More planking, the pieces are run out long and thin trimmed flush to the top of the mold using a router.


Hull trimmed flush to the frame and glassed.


Dagger board trunk installed.


First half hull done and off the mold, only 3 more to go...


Two halves put together


TA DA!!!! First hull off the mold only one more to go