: The Home Boat Builders Page: Driade plan review.

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Boat Name	Dirade
Links to Order	http://www.bcademco.it/file/piani-canoe_eng.htm (Price 40 euros as of april, 2011) Link to additional pictures
Building Method	Stitch & Glue (Taped Seam)
Length / Beam	4.6 meters LOD / 1.68 meters Beam
Sail Plan / Sail Area	N/A
Weight	25 kg
Draft	.08 meters
Sleeps	N/A
Power	Oars
Crew	1 (maybe 2)
Number of sheets in plan set	Plans come in 4 PDF files, 1) General info/materials list, 2) scantlings 3) Plans sheets (8) 4) Stitch and Glue instructions
Sheet 1	General view (shown below)
Sheet 2	Lines Plan
Sheet 3	Planking and cockpit panels devloped services (shown below)
Sheet 4	Nesting of Panels (shown below)
Sheet 5	Bulkhead Dimensions
Sheet 6	Bulkhead Reinforcement (shown below)
Sheet 7	Longitudinal Sections and Hull Stem details
Sheet 8	Construction details
Buildboats.com Review	Last February I received the follow note from Paolo Lodigiani: I am Paolo Lodigiani, yacht designer and owner of the company B.C.A. Demco Kit (www.bcademco.it). The company operates in the nautical sector since 1990, providing building plans and a variety of services and products for wooden boats lovers. Notably, we specialized in amateur boatbuilding and classic boats, growing into the best-known firm in Italy in this market niche. We published several technical handbooks about boat building and yacht design and some books concerning the culture of the sea. We organise courses in nautical design, building, and restoration of wooden boats. The catalogue of our plans includes more than 50 boats, that we are selling in Italy since many years. Lately we are beginning to expand into the foreign market and therefore we have translated most of our plans in English. In two last years we also promoted a cooperation project in Senegal, designing and participating to the construction of sailing and motorboats in that country. You may read further information in our website. I have seen and I appreciate your website and, if you agree too, I would like to exchange our website links. Best regards Paolo Lodigiani Paolo has provided a set of plans of his Driade, a rowing boat, for review: The Driade is two chine, rowing boat built in plywood using the stitch and glue construction method. The plans were delivered as four PDF files in English. They are also available in Italian. The files are easily read using Adobe Reader. Directions were originally written in Italian, and translated to English for the most part the translation is good, and it does not impair understanding of how to build the boat. All dimensions are metric. I like metric as I find it much easier than dealing with quarters, eights etc, and many tape measures come with metric on one side. On the flip side I often us a 4' drywall T square to loft measurements on plywood panels, I've not found one in metric. One other note, the use of commas and decimal points is switched per European standards. So what you might be used to seeing as one point four eight will be 1,48 in the plans. The designer says this about the Driade which is listed under the kayaks section of his website: : The DRIADE cannot be truly considered a real canoe, but rather as a rowing boat, ideal for those who wish to train for rowing with a simpler, more versatile, easier to handle and cheaper boat than the typical rowing skiffs - which are much longer and more difficult to handle. Of these, the DRIADE maintains some features such as sliding seats and outriggers, but has the advantage of being easily transported on top of a normal car. The boat is quite stable to be used also for touristic excursions, although this was not the original reason for which it was devised. Speed is closely linked to its floating length and is not that of a real canoeing boat, but thanks to its streamlines, lightness and rowing efficiency, it is much faster than a normal rowing boat of the same size. Both the chine and round version have similar characteristics. First of the four pdf files provides general information about the boat and the other files. Included is a high level description of the 8 plan sheets, general dimensions and particulars of the Driade, and contact information for the designer. The materials list provides info on the number sheets and thickness of the required panels, the amounts of resin and cloth needed, and the solid wood needed. The general building sequence is outlined which is supplemented by the stitch and glue instructions in one of the other PDF files. At the end of the document you will find traditional table of offsets, while not required to build the boat. The next file is entitled "Scantlings and Description" which is a single page. It provides details about which thickness of plywood and solid timber to use for each of the Driade's panels and reinforcements. Specifics about the limber holes are also detailed. The third file in the set is the plans sheets. There are eight pages (plans sheets), and with Adobe you can rotate the orientation of the sheets as needed. The sheets are very easy to read and those familiar and those not, will find them very understandable. One note I'd call out is that the station lines for the plywood panels are roughly 10" apart, which will give about 10 stations in 8 feet, which should help define the panel shape, other plans typically have 12" or 24" station lines. This will add some additional time to the lofting process, but hopefully provide a more accurately marked panel. The nesting pages are clear on how to lay out the parts on the sheets of ply and from the looks of it they should fit pretty easily. Anyone who has done a stitch and glue boat will find they should be able to get going quickly with Driade. The final file is a 24 page instruction booklet for stitch and glue boat building. I have read whole books on this process and also seen it described in only a few pages in other books. I think Paolo's version is very good for several reasons. First he has tailored it to his plans so one can match the instructions to his plan sheets, however one could use his instructions with other plan sets as well. He describes methods for joining panels with pros and cons. He covers materials and tools and provide some great suggestions and advice at the end of the booklet. In conclusion the Driade looks to be a fun boat for rowing and should be easy to build. In my opinion it should be a breeze for anyone who has built before. More importantly I think the plan set is well suited for the novice boat builder and would make a great first project.