: Hey John,

: The key to Tom's plans is really reading the pages. There is a lot
: of detail there and the detail doesn't necessarily line up in
: the order you think that it should. I can't tell you how many
: times I missed items. I've spent hours reading and re-reading to
: get specific things right and still done things in the wrong
: order at times. I actually ended up printing the pages for the
: plan I was working on and then arranging it all in a way that
: made sense to me and allowed me to find the detail I was looking
: for at the time.

That seems to be characteristic of many boat plans. I have never found one that you could just lay down, turn a page at a time and do what it says. They usually start off sensibly with the BoM and then you have to hunt around for the next page. The best instructions are the ones you find in boating , strictly in order, do this now and then buy next month's issue . . . if the design of your choice has been featured in a magazine it is worth buying the back copies IMHO.

: I think that I tend to be like a lot of people on this forum in
: that I like to be in the process of building and really am not
: much for reading directions.

: Eric M.

Maybe boat designers need to understand boat builders . . . of course it wouldn't be as much fun if boat building was like assembling IKEA furniture . . .