Boat building

- Architect : Jean Michel VIANT ;
- Technical features: Length 8,00 m; beam 1,60 m; unladen weight 450 Kgs ;
- Shipbuilding materials: laminated glass-epoxy plywood ;
- Unsinkable and self-righting one-design boat built from a kit assembled either by the skipper himself or by a professional shipbuilder.

BUILDING THE “RAMES GUYANE” MONOTYPE

DIFFERENT METHODS AND TIME-SCHEDULES:

We believe that it would take a professional boat builder 800 hours to build, fit out, fine tune and paint a “Rames Guyane” monotype ….and perhaps 1200 hours for an amateur boat builder to do the same work with out having had previous experience.

Under these conditions, at a rate of 60 to 80 hours per month or 15 to 20 hours per week (a substantial undertaking if you have a job as well), the absolute minimum time for an amateur boat builder to build this monotype would be just over year.

Another more expensive way to do it (about £30,000 in labour costs) would be to have the boat built from kit by a professional boat builder. This would allow more time to look for sponsors, bearing in mind that if no sponsors are found there could be a problem. It would also shorten the boat building time by about 7 months in comparison to a boat built by an amateur because a professional boat builder would normally deliver the finished boat in just under 5 months.

A third option would be for the project team to employ someone who could work full time on the building of the boat and who would be helped by the amateur/s whenever possible. Less costly than handing all the work over to a professional boat builder but more costly than self-build by an amateur, this method was tried and tested by several of the rowers in the first edition of the race.

If the rower decides to take the self-build amateur route, bearing in mind that the rules state that the competitors should be present and ready to row in the qualification trials which will take place during October 2011, the amateur boat builder must be ready to throw himself into battle before the end of September 2010 at the latest.