A typical build takes me about 40 to 50 hours...my nephew is building right now (maybe you saw the photos?) and he will likely have about 60 hours invested.
There is another forum that I hang around, a member there is building his first ever boat and it's coming out OK...He is a computer nerd (his words, not mine) and jokes that his workmates don't let him use a screwdriver. He's doing just fine.
Building a stripper is much easier than it may appear. it's just a series of steps, usually with plenty of allowance for mistakes. The only challenging part, for most folks, is the fiberglassing, a serious error in that step is time consuming and costly to recover from. But, with a little common sense and practice on scrap material, glassing is no big deal either.
BTW, most of my boats are high performance, and are generally as light in weight as some Kevlar and carbon commercially built boats. When you compare the performance and weight of my boats to a $3,000 commercial build, and realize that it costs about $600 in materials, the choice is clear. And I may be a bit biased, but I do think that wood boats are prettier than any carbon, kevlar or fiberglass boats.
And one last thing, I typically abuse my boats, occasionally rupturing the hull, abrading through the laminate on rocky streams, even had one crushed in a cross current swamping...no big deal, I built them, I can easily repair them. If I had spent $3,000 on a boat, I would be heartsick with every nick and scratch.
The strippers are actually pretty strong, you can walk in an unsupported hull without fear of damaging it...strippers are quiet in the water, and keep you warm when the water is cold.
What could be better??
