Articles
Introduction to Woods Designs
Woods Designs specialise in the design of sailing catamarans for both home and professional builders. However we also have a small range of dinghies, trimarans and power catamarans
I tend to own a fleet of multihulls. Sometimes I just go for a day sail, sometimes I race for the weekend, while most years I spend a long time living on board (I spent most Christmas' living on board a boat from 2001 - 2020, on many different boats and in seven different countries). I have now cruised and raced in over 40 countries. All this experience means that I have personally faced nearly every situation you can meet when sailing and I use that experience in my designs.
At Woods Designs we have always believed that designers should build and sail their own boats. As a result, since 1980 we have built a total of 18 catamarans, ranging from a 14' beach cat to the 35' performance cruising catamaran Banshee. We have also built all the dinghies, the Strike 15 and 18 and the Skoota 20 and 28 powercats.
We have built boats in sheet ply, foam sandwich, strip cedar as well as several catamarans built using grp moulds (that have also been built by us). Most have been built in our garden, and all with very limited tools and boatbuilding skills.
I usually build a prototype design each year. These boats have been built in ply, strip plank and foam sandwich, always at home using basic DIY tools and even more basic boatbuilding skills. Once launched I then go out testing, trying things, changing things, reverting to my original idea. It goes on and on. That way the design can be 100% right. So that the end result is a better boat for you. Just drawing a set of plans means the boat is only 95% perfect.
So we know at first hand the problems that home boatbuilders face. The resulting boats have been used as full size test bed for new ideas, while, of course, building the boats ourselves helps ensure that the plans are fully detailed and that backyard builders can build them.
If you do not want to build yourself and are interested in having a catamaran built for you then a number of yards round the world build either grp production boats or catamarans on a one off basis. Please contact me for more details