Intro

Hello world - I'm building a mini ocean racing sailboat! Yup, I really am.

Sometimes all the things in the world just happen to fall in place at just the right time. This is how my Class Globe 5.80 journey started. I had dreamt of participating in the Solo Trans Tasman Challenge for some time but that still seemed like a distant not easily achievable goal. I had no boat and only a small budget, so I was thinking of buying a class mini 6.50 boat. They're very rare in Australia. In fact, there was only one for sale in Western Australia when I was looking. For a greater selection of boats for sale, I would need to look overseas.

Anyway, to cut a long story short. COVID-19 happened and I was helping my friends with their boat restoration project and Annika mentioned the Class Globe 5.80 project, which was just launched and casually said Thommo and her were thinking I could build one in the corner of their shed. It didn't take me long to jump at the opportunity. I bought a set of plans for 300EUR and with that, I made my first commitment. I started planning how I would build the boat. Where would I source the materials needed, where to start and so on. The first major choice was deciding whether to build from scratch or buy a kit. I seriously considered building everything from scratch since the kit seemed quite expensive. I spoke to other builders and quickly realised a kit is a far better choice, especially for a first-time builder. Firstly, building from a kit saves an enormous amount of time and gets you started much quicker. Secondly, the precision of a CNC cut kit gives an extra level of assurance that the boat will turn out right.

I ordered my kit around mid-November 2020, with a lead time of 6 weeks. With a minor delay my kit was delivered at the end of January. The shipping company told me what day they'd deliver the kit with a truck so I could be there to take the shipment. Thommo was also at the shed when the truck arrived and he offloaded the pallet from the truck. This was it! I stood there, excited like a child but also feeling a little awkward. What now? Oh my god, I'm really building this thing.

The kit package looked like a slightly bigger version of flat-pack furniture you'd buy from IKEA 😂 We cut it open and started inspecting the contents. A bunch of marked plywood sheets and timber panels. The kit pieces were still tabbed into the panels, so first I had to cut them out with a jigsaw.