There was an article in the July Practical Boat Owner on getting a boat RCD certified as a one off.  For a hefty 40 footer, the total cost was a substantial 5000 GBP, in the UK.  Ouch!

Keith Lyon wrote:

Thank you for all the replies. I will follow up on these suggestions.

But if one builds such a private yacht within the EU, not for sale, just for personal use, does this fall under the RCD regulations? Is there a requirement for a STIX evaluation and calculation?

There's a grey area here. If you build a boat for your own use, and keep it for five years, you need not get a CE mark. If you complete from a bare hull or a kit, you must. But the RCD says 

(4)  ‘watercraft built for own use’ means a watercraft predomi­nantly built by its future user for his own use; 

And that word "predominantly" raises the question of how much professional help, or even amateur help, you can engage, before you step over the line and have to get an (expensive) CE mark. 

Hi Keith,

To add to the comment about Poland, the Baltic States may also be worth considering.  When I lived in Latvia, I sailed a Dragon and used both a skilled boatbuilder (to replace some ribs) and enthusiastic semi skilled help for general maintenance. Both were good, but I would add to David Tyler's caution - you need to decide at an early stage if you are the builder and project manager, or if you are going to allow workers freedom to choose their own solutions.  I speak from the experience of someone who is currently undoing work that I paid someone to do last year! (I am sure the work itself is fine, it is just not quite how I wanted it and I know it will bother me).  Although I have not lived in Latvia for nearly ten years, I still have friends in the country and visit regularly and I think that costs are still low, although at the more professional end of the scale, not that much cheaper than the UK, for example.

There is also a history of fairly innovative multihull building in Riga , including early use of foils and wing masts from a little known designer called Aldis Eglajs, who I once had the pleasure to interview. Last year, I also noticed that the boatyard in Engure had some catamaran moulds outside, although not much sign of life inside (although it was January and -19 when I was there).

I still have some Facebook contacts in the sailing game there, so if you were interested I could have a look through my contacts and try and find someone who could set you up with the right people to talk to.

Good luck!

Mark

Keith

I would strongly advise against the Philippines as a location.  Materials are a problem, as our word loving critters, and in recent times it's become a fairly scary place to be due to government endorsed vigilantes!  However the workers are good guys.  I worked with some on my last project in Shanghai.  I rate them, the Indonesian and Malay guys.  I know of a company in China who could build something for you One World Marine.  But I'm not sure you'd save anything on the build.....

I see you're in Sweden.  You could do worse than look at Polish boatyards.

Best of luck

Peter

The size is 11m, multihull, as a liveaboard. Probably 2-4 years to accomplish as a solo part-time careful amateur. So better to ask for skilled help to accelerate things.

The reason to build new is to get things the way I would like. Buying an existing (much older) model would likely entail so much demolition, repair and rework that it would be simpler and more pleasant to just build from scratch, using more modern materials and techniques.

I was concerned about the weather in terms how much humidity is in the air while the epoxy work is being done. But I see they build in the Philippines, for example, so perhaps that is not insurmoutable.

For the residency aspect during the project, that is not too difficult -- one just needs a trip abroad now and then to go get supplies. Or just apply for residency, if that makes sense.

But I am concerned about the "balance of power" if employing someone else, as David rightly points out. To that end, I am reading everything relevant. Thus this inquiry as to what others have done or would do.

I did look around on the web for boat builders, but most want to build with expensive foam, for that lovely Clorox bottle look. My thinking is much more classic and minimalist, so plywood/epoxy is the way to go.

I did turn up one outfit in India which looked like they would like such a project, but that seems much too iffy for me.

Where have all the backyard builders gone?