: Agreed re. Klepper! Maybe I will end up making it completely at home with
: components not fully attached together, then take it apart and glue
: together in Sweden. Would be a challenge to force it into the very tight
: sewn skin I'd prefer though. Has anyone done this?

There is a trick to that. Look at how your shoes are laced (assuming they don't use velcro !)

When you assemble the deck fabric, cut the pieces for the front deck, and instead of sewing them together, insert grommet holes or eyelets, and loosely lace together the deck halves. Now sew them to the hull pieces, getting a good tight fit on the fabric.

By completely removing the laces on the fore deck you can peel the front end of the fabric off of the front of the boat. The boat then will slide out of the fitted back half of the skin.

To reassemble, put the frame together, slip it into the back half of the skin, roll the front half over the assembled frame, lace, and tighten the laces.

By assembling the skin initially with the laces loose, you'll later be able to draw it tighter should the fabric stretch.

If you sew an extra piece of fabric to each half of the front deck, placing this under the eyelets, you can roll theese together to create a watertight seal, which will be held together by the lacing. Again, look at a shoe and imagine instead of having a tongue attached to the center, it has two tongues, each attached to one side, and overlapping in the middle, under the laces.

Should you decide to buy your wood in Sweden remember that you'll need to rip it, plane it, sand it, and seal it there. Will you need to bring any tools with you to do these tasks?

If you decide to precut pieces, consider sending them ahead, a week or two before you go. You won't have to handle them through the airport. They will be there when you get there. If there are any damaged pieces, you can make replacements and just bring those few parts with you. As freight you would probably be able to send longer strips of wood (probably not 18 feet or 6 meters, though) than you could carry as luggage. Estimate the size you would be sending and get an estimate on the shipping charges to see if this is viable. The polyester or Dacron fabric for the skin is not very heavy, and should pack nicely in a suitcase before it is coated.

Best of luck on the project.

PGJ