Welsford navigator 'Annie' build slideshow

To celebrate more than 1.5 million views of my boat building pics on Flickr- half of which are of the building of the Welsford Navigator 'Annie', I have put together a five minute slide show of the build process as it happened for me. 

In writing, emailing and talking to dozens of Navigator builders since posting these some years ago, I know that having pictures and resources available is a big factor in motivation for some who are facing these challenges for the first time, often with little experience in the shed, or 'on the tools' (as Australian tradesmen express it).

I hope this is of some use to builders- particularly of Welsford designed boats which all share some common build and design features. The Flickr pics are somewhat annotated and are more useful for careful dreaming, but maybe a slideshow might be of use in big picture dreaming when you should be doing something normal, but need a boat building fix.

Mine isn't the prettiest of Navigators, nor is it the best build. I'm certainly not the best sailor or the best film maker or the most adventurous owner. To be honest I love timber and lines and building challenges most of all and sailing is something I came to very late in life. The workshop in which most of the build happened is crude and agricultural (although some bits are nice when I took it to my place of work) but the boat functions well and the pics have been feasted upon because they are there to be seen.

There is also the book 'Something About Navigator' (available on Amazon) which people tell me has been useful. I think I earn about $3 per copy when one sells, so please don't think this is a commercial plug- I wouldn't have bothered for the money! The black and white edition has pretty ordinary illustration quality, but I had strong advice at the time that I needed to keep the cost of the book down to $20. The colour edition is better, but twice the price.

Navigator 'Annie' build slideshow from Robert Ditterich on Vimeo.

Navigator Book is available

There are two different editions of 'Something About Navigator' available now through one sales channel, with others becoming available soon. The original plan was to make the book as affordable as possible, by keeping production costs low, using a print on demand process, and monochrome printing in the USA on modest paper. I have done that, and it is available at @ $20USD (The 'black and white edition').

But following some encouraging feed-back, I have also produced a more expensive edition that is printed on better paper and with mainly coloured illustrations, in other words, a printed version of the color PDF that will also be for sale later. It is available for $42 USD. This is definitely a more attractive book, but obviously more than twice the price.

Chuck at Duckworks has said that copies will ultimately be available through his online shop, ands I'm a bit unclear how that will be managed, but I think an order from Duckworks will be filled by me and drop-shipped straight to the customer from the printer.

In the next few weeks the book will also come online at Amazon.com, and I'll put up a link when that happens.

In the meantime, it seems that the best way for me to sell the book is by the direct link to my Createspace e-store here for the color edition, or here for the black and white one. ( I have to say that my little 'cut' is much more respectable with this sales channel than an Amazon purchase will be)

This is a very low-key sort of book launch, just me and my computer, but I really need to mention some of the people that made writing this thing so much fun, and who have given their stories to the book.

The book gives a bit of an outline of the development of the design, and a bit of an analysis of the things that maybe have made it such a happy and successful boat enjoyed in so many ways, in so many places, then there are some stories by Navigator owners and sailors and some builders. After that there is a bit of writing about the whole building a boat thing, and a chapter about building a hull. Following this there is a bit of detail about fittings. Finally there is a concise list of resources for enthusiasts to follow up. Those of you reading this on my blog will probably have already spotted those....

The other voices though were given so generously and with such a co-operative and helpful spirit, and the essays they contributed lift this little book off the page and out yonder onto the water. There are some great photos too, although in striving for an economical product I haven't done them their due justice. In no particular order, Steve Parke, Owen Sinclair, Richard Schmidt, John Welsford, Chuck Leinweber, Kevin Brennan, Martin Welby, Dave Perillo, Dave Johnstone Barrett Faneuf and others all made the process an absolute delight and I thank them most sincerely for listening to my idea and jumping in without hesitation to support it.

It is my sincere hope that this little book will give some pleasure, not only to Navigator enthusiasts, but to dreamers, builders and sailors who just want something simple, real, and creative in their lives and who find that thinking about little boats is helpful and maybe even inspirational in all that.

Navigator book proof arrives

The first print proof arrived to-day. The book is two hundred and twenty-something pages long and will be available for about $20 when released. I need to read this one carefully, looking for errors and typos and all the other naughty stuff we get up to when we try to say something in writing.

There is a very good section in there written by other Navigator owners- stories of Navigators 'in the wild'- experienced voices much more interesting than mine.

When this one is corrected, I'll send a new version to be processed, and then they'll send me another proof....and then I'll read it and maybe approve it for print...I'm not much of an editor, being much too impatient to achieve perfection. I don't apologise for that though, because that's just how I get things done. The next thing is always more important, somehow.

This book will have it's own blog page, just in case anyone is interested in it. I've finished the book before finishing my boat, and despite some very sound advice from friends who felt that the book should show my finished 'Annie', I feel very strongly that this book should be about the Navigator, not my Navigator.

Some of you will recognise the lovely photo on the cover as being Dave Johnstone's 'Korora."