Computer Assisted Drafting (CAD) has allowed me to integrate a very powerful tool into my work. With 14 years of experience and testing, it has become a proven asset and a part of almost every project. It allows me to solve problems in a virtual environment well before they reach the shop floor. With the computer, I can loft the entire hull on my desktop. Traditionally, the hull was lofted full size on a wood floor. Parts are engineered and patterns are stored on a hard drive instead of hanging on a wall. Full-size drawings can be printed as needed. Cad has given me the ability to measure an existing hull, document construction and to produce extremely accurate shop drawings. It also allows me to reassemble a project to the original shape from dimensions taken the original hull prior to disassembly.

Documenting the original construction of a project is perhaps the most important part of my work. There are so few original boats that have escaped any restoration that it can be very difficult to determine what was original. I have developed a very accurate system to take the lines from my projects which I use to reassemble the new construction. With CAD and reverse engineering, I can document construction, study how the hull was originally assembled and build a model to further study construction. Double click on the text 1939 DASH and you can see firsthand how incredibly powerful a 3 dimensional model can be. Each element in the model can produce a full size plan of the part in the assembly. You can also move the assembly to view it at any angle and measure any part. With a virtual hull fully assembled, every element of construction could be documented and preserved. A complete set of construction drawings is possible with 100% accuracy.