: Actually the scantlings (sizes) of Tom's (Yost) boats are at about
: the minimum you can use and have a safe boat. Making them
: lighter really isn't all that great of an idea. They are still
: very light, my long Sea Ranger with a heavy 6 ounce glass skin
: over Dacron only weighs 34 lbs. and that's with 3/4"
: plywood frames because I misread Tom's instructions for the
: first boat, could lose probably 5 lbs. from that. That boat's
: almost 19' long btw. Built with 1/2" okoume frames and WRC
: stringers with a light cover (even my glass one) and you'd
: easily have a boat in the high 20 lb. range, that's pretty light
: :)

: I most certainly understand the feeling of just how light the SOF's
: are, specially compared to some of my heavy boats :)

: Bill H.
Yes, Tom's designs do tend to be fairly minimalistic. I was just trying to build quickly with materials I had on hand and minimize the weight. I saved maybe 5-8 pounds but ended up gaining some of that back with poor bow stem piece planning. Now I know the limitations and have already cut stations for the next boat a little larger dimension to make sure it doesn't happen again.

So far I've been "lazy" and skinning only with PVC, which certainly adds to the weight as well. One of these days I may try a different skin but I have so much PVC on hand right now I don't expect it to happen very soon. That also extends build time, which I try to avoid because I'm already split in a thousand different directions with projects- more time to finish does not help that situation at all.

FrankP