I was pleased to receive the pictures below from Vanderlei Becjer, our client from Porto Alegre, in Southern Brazil, who is the 4th person to build a Kiribati 36 hull.
Vanderlei, without any previous boatbuilding experience, opted not to buy the CNC kit and go the traditional way about it, by manually lofting and cutting all parts.
At first I thought this could become quite a challenging situation from the support after sales point of view, but Vanderlei is proving me wrong.
All I had to do was to write a comprehensive email explaining the rudiments of how to start from a table of offsets and use the lines plan, in conjunction with the detailed 1:10 scale drawings for the structural sections and the structural plan, to start erecting the building sections on the building jig, which is also draw in great detail in the standard set of plans.
A couple of months later this is how far Vanderlei has come.
I am in fact very well pleased that the basic set of plans is proving to be suitable for even completely novices to get on with their projects.
Hull number 3 is also very advanced by now. Almost all metal work is finished, as the picture below shows. In fact the build is more advanced than shown here. Also the rigid pipe rails have been modified to follow the original design, which has less vertical members than shown in the picture and a drop in height in the top pipe as it goes to meet the bow pulpit, in order for the genoa to clear it.
Our client is even building dorade boxes totally in aluminum, and they will be a very good asset to have.
Hull number one continues sailing slowly North along the Brazilian coast, and his owner Jone Martins seems to be having the time of his life.
Soon the first Pop Alu 32 will be launched. In fact the first to be launched will be hull number 3, and I will write a post with pictures soon.