: I'm like you. Building my first, the guillemot, from the book. I
: did the lofting myself on graph paper. It took a while to follow
: it, but I really enjoyed it.

: Study figure 4-2 and compare this to the offsets in the guillemot
: table. This will help work out where the coordinates are placed.
: In my book, I scribbled the following notes in the offsets
: table:
: * top section, buttocks. The left column is widths out from the
: centerline. The actual offsets are heights above/below those
: lateral lines. Eg hull buttock for form 4: at 4" either
: side of the centerline, the depth to the hull is 1.31". So
: mark a dot 4" to the left of the centerline and 1.31"
: down from the waterline.

: * bottom section, waterlines. The left column is horizontal lines
: above/below the waterline. The offsets are lateral positions on
: each line. So what you end up doing is plotting the outline
: twice, in effect. You'll see why it's necessary, some places the
: slope of the line is so acute you need the offsets from both
: points of view to get a useful plot.

: I found it dead easy to glue the paper forms onto mdf. For me, I
: figure plotting on 1" paper with 1/10" gradations
: quick am I should think a *lot* quicker than lifting direct onto
: plain wood. I also found the graph paper lines quite handy when
: placing detail strips to get symmetry across the boat

: good luck!

Have to remember you're building a boat, out of wood :)

Professional boatbuilders usually work to plus or minus and 1/8", usually with a + or - sign to indicate if the line is should be slightly larger or smaller than an 1/8 away from center. Has worked well for hundreds of years doing it that way. Many designers have decimal numbers on their plans, some to the thousands because the drawings are done on a CAD program, that degree of accuracy isn't possible in wood, just round those numbers and you'll be fine.

Bill H.