Designing a boat

Perhaps... :)

Hmm... I had a long hard think today... and it's been narrowed down to two choices... 

Hmmm... I'm not sure.. briefly heard about them 2 years ago... that's the last of it I remember !

Originally posted by frow3n Hmmm... I'm not sure.. briefly heard about them 2 years ago... that's the last of it I remember ! I've sort of gone off the idea of building... it costs a lot and considering I'm in my GCSE year then its not the best idea to go build a boat!

GCSE schmee cee see eseeee
There is never a good time to do this sort of thing looking at it like that. If you want it, do it.
However...
Unless you have long term access to tools, a decent workspace and ideally some kinda mentoring figure etc then you will find this pretty difficult.
Like pond monkey says, you will spend a lot of cash to make this happen whichever way you do it. How long it takes depends on the other element of the holy trinity of project management - quality. I would say that if you are spending the beginnings of a house deposit anyhow, you should dignify it with doing it as nicely as possible.
You can spend ten grand chucking something together shoddy in a year to scratch the itch, or if you want to do it nicely it'll take much longer.
Getting bogged down in design isn't strictly necessary, depending on how off piste you are going, hence the value in working to existing class rules.
Any suitable part you can buy off te shelf will help.
I'd have a good long think about why you feel that what's out there isn't enough, and how you would do it if differently. I.e before even thinking of commiting, you should know exactly how you are going to do everything.
My advice is that you are a young lad, keep these ideas on ice, get out and develop your own sailing, sail a lot of different boats, maybe do some volunteer work for a boatbuilder to learn some skills and maybe eventually earn some beer money. Maintain/repair/modify your own gear.
I would be a bit careful reading "hpS" as some of it is a bit bull.
Read the gougeon brothers wooden boat building book. A lot of it analogues into frp, and it's good for building tools.
Also yacht design by Larson and eliason
and skenes elements of yacht design.
As and when you grow jaded of the beer, 29er sailing and fanny, and you still want to scratch the itch, that may be the time.

Originally posted by tick In my experience it is a rare youth who can doggedly plough on month after month with a substantial project.