Galway 18 Plans

The Galway 18 has been designed as a replacement for a client’s ageing Lysander and incorporates a number of his thoughts and ideas on the design of a safe cruising boat of this size. The main requirement is, of course, that she should be easily trailable behind the average family saloon car and therefore, her weight with permanent ballast has been kept below the 2000 lb. mark. In order to keep the weight down and yet still have a robust design, the construction of the Galway 18 is based upon pre shaped 3/8’’ ply bulkheads and fore and aft girders which are slotted together along with the transoms to form a very strong structure which incorporates much of the internal joiner work (bunk, locker, galley and cockpit seat fronts) and also forms the shape of the boat. The chine stringers and gunwale are then laminated in situ and the 3/8’’ ply hull panels are then applied. The bottom consists of 2 layers of 3/8’’ ply and virtually no beveling is required, even on the chine stringers as the ‘V’ gap between the stringer and the hull panel is filled with WEST epoxy putty. The design is very adaptable and bunk heights etc can be altered to suit. The small transom at the bow allows a safe and large recessed foredeck area which acts as a self draining anchor and chain locker and there is a large outboard well at the stern. The standard arrangement shows 2 berths, a cooker and WC inside with 2 further people sleeping on wide cockpit seats under a boom tent, but there is space for 1 or 2 further berths to be fitted inside and extending under the cockpit area. With a view to safe easy handling, both a junk rig and a sprit boom rig with jib are shown on the plans and full details are given for the making of solid wood spars. The central ballast/bilge keel arrangement may be changed to centreboard or fin keel.