My wife and I race a Flying Scot, but when she got a job that interfered with our racing I started looking for a single hand racing dinghy to build. After spending a significant amount of time searching the internet I found there wasn't a large selection of suitable designs but I did find one that satisfied my needs. The Sabre is a very popular one-design class in Australia with 130 boats racing in this year's Nationals. The class website is located here www.sabre.org.au.
I chose the Sabre because it's easy to build, easy to sail, and easy to rig. It's reasonably fast for a 12' boat, light, around 90 pounds for the hull, and relatively inexpensive to build. The Sabre website says 40 hours build time and $3,500 will get you a finished boat. I found their build time optimistic and the cost a little bit short but I used top of the line materials, rigging, and sail. The construction method is stitch and glue. I used five sheets of 4mm Okoume for hull panels, a couple Western Red Cedar 2x6's for framing and a Douglas Fir 2x8 for the foils. Templates and a very thorough 65 page building guide are used as plans.
This is my wife and I headed to the start line in our Flying Scot. If you look closely you'll notice she's turned around giving me a finger pointing pre-race lecture. The boat is named "Rated R" due to language but we do have a lot of fun racing together.
Now back to the Sabre, butt joining the hull bottom panels.
Hull panels stitched together, the bottom has a layer of 2 oz fiberglass on the inside and will have another layer of 2 oz on the outside.
Bulkhead and frame installed. The mast step sits where the clamps are on the deck beam.
Sheer clamps being glued on with side tank panels and dagger board trunk installed.
Ready for decks.
Decks glued on.
Bottom faired and fiberglassed.
Installing hardware.
Measuring for shrouds, the boat came out through the door in the background. The Sabre is a boat that can be built in the living room if you're single.
View of boat and rigging.
Another view of rigging, each sail control line is led to both sides of the boat allowing them to be adjusted while hiked out on either tack.
First sail.
There are several Sabre videos on YouTube, these are two of my favorites.
