Sailing the "Eve 16"

Today I received the following comment from Dennis about my previous entry: -

I like what you are doing with the blog, Ross. Great Stuff! On another note, did you get to sail EVE? What did you think of the design? -- Dennis

Well, I didn't sail the boat personally, but both of the hulls I built were finished off by their respective owners, and both have been sailed. One of them went on to be used in the Jody Foster film, "Nim's Island". As far as I know, the other one is still in the hands of the original owner.

The Eve 16 was a development that Mike Roberts carried out on his well-known Green Island 15 design. What he did was to run the Green Island 15 through his Maxsurf program and get the program to round-off the sharp edges of the straight-sided and flat bottomed Green Island 15. Mike wanted the boat to be built as a strip planked hull, and I believe that at least one was done that way by an owner-builder.

This is the first Eve 16 hull I built, showing the original sheer line, and in the process of being fitted out by the owner

Here she is heading out of the driveway on launching day

However, both of the customers I had for the Eve 16 were keen to try out my idea of having a strip planked bottom up to around the fairly hard turn of the bilge, and then change to glued lapstrake for the rest of the planking. Mike wasn't keen, but good-naturedly agreed to me doing it that way.

The results were excellent. The first boat was built as per the plan, using my planking method, but the second had a little extra hollow cut into the sheer at the request of the owner. If you look at the pictures, you can see that the sheer strake is a bit skinny in the middle, but the revised sheer line is more pleasant to the eye - the original looking a bit flat.

This is an upside-down photo I took to check the new sheer line that we were marking on the second hull to be built. You can see that there is not too much hull to be cut away, but the visual difference was amazing.

The new sheer line being displayed just before I towed the hull to the owner for the finish work. This is the boat in the sailing photos, and the one which ended up in "Nim's Island"

The boat that I saw sailing went very well indeed, and seemed to sail just as well as the Green Island 15 which is not surprising given the origin of the hull, and the fact that the rigs and layout were identical.

The second boat under sail in Manly Yacht Harbour

And another view of the same boat

Now, I'm worried that everybody will go off and buy plans from Mike, so here are some pictures of some of my boats - after all, it is my website and you all get the pictures for free!

A Phoenix III sailing powerfully on the west coast of U.S.A. It looks like she has a triangular mainsail, but it is just the angle of the sprit mainsail

Me sailing Periwinkle on launching day