Building a Javelin
We keep getting requests from overseas, from all sorts of great countries (Italy, USA, Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, Greece, Canada) from people interested in building Javelins, we have put this page together to give you some help in putting your Javelin building project together. This page pulls together a number of links to the Javelin web site and other sites, if you came straight to this page, and still need more information, a good place to start is the Technical page on this site.

The Plans
There are no detailed plans for a modern Javelin as most people who make them design their own to fit within the class restrictions, basing them on existing proven designs, with some of their own modifications and experimentation. This is a little difficult to do if you do not have a Javelin to start your own design from. To get you started, we can provide these hull offsets, which are from an up-to-date hull which should be very competitive and quick. The design is by Phil McNeill, who was World Cherub Champion, and has won the NZ Javelin Nationals many times, as well as being a New Zealand 470 champion. This has been modified and lofted and put into digital form by David Lee, who designed "Bungholio" which is one of the top New Zealand boats, and which is our standard New Zealand design at the present time.

NOTE: These offsets are for the outside of the hull. From these you should be able to loft the required building frames by subtracting your hull skin thickness and stringer dimensions you use in your mould, see the links in construction section for more information.

Copyright and Restrictions
There is no copyright, or restrictions on anyone at any location in the world from building a Javelin. The only restrictions for your boat to be called a Javelin is that it conforms to the Javelin class rules and restrictions. These rules, along with a measurement form, and measuring guidelines are available in the class constitution. These documents can also be downloaded individually from the Technical page. We even provide the design to you for free!

For Javelins raced throughout New Zealand, and Australia, the boats go through a registration process in the home country, where they are "measured" by Javelin sailors familiar and experienced with the class rules, they are then issued a certificate of measurement.

If you would like to build a Javelin in a different country, and have it registered, we would be happy to assist in that. You would need to have someone help measure your boat overseas, and then send the completed measurement form to the New Zealand registrar, see the contacts section to find out who that is at the time. We would then record the details, and you would be the proud owner of a Javelin.

All that we would ask, is that you share your experiences building your boat with the rest of the Javelin sailors, by sending a few email updates out to us via the mailing list. We would also love to put pictures of your projects on the web site, and add your country flag to the site as well.

Construction
There are no rules on what your boat can be made of, so Fibreglass, carbon fibre, plywood, whatever you like, you can use it. The Javelin was designed with rules to enable simple construction out of plywood by minimising the curvature in sections, while still being easy to construct out of plywood. The hull offsets were specifically designed for building the fastest possible plywood hull within the Javelin rules. This hull shape would also be easily built in foam and glass for those with access to these materials.

For a pictorial summary of building a New Zealand Foam/Glass Javelin, have a look in the Virtual Javelin pages.

For some different ideas on building either Foam, or Plywood Javelins there is some very good boat building information on the Cherub website. The Cherub was also designed by John Spencer (who designed the Javelin), but is slightly smaller at 12ft long. This information should be directly applicable to building a Javelin, in fact we used this information, alongside the information we gained from talking to experienced boat builders in New Zealand.

Luis Pinto has built a Javelin in the United States using these offsets, and has produced a document describing how to build your own false floored Javelin in plywood. This document is "a work in progress", and the New Zealand guys will be making a few modifications when time allows.

Another piece of information we used, and which should be useful is this foam building guide produced by composite engineers High Modulus in New Zealand, it describes how to build a foam hull over a male stringer mould.

There might also be some useful information in our NEW Javelin document, which describes the process associated with building a new foam/glass Javelin from the New Zealand associations moulds.

Hull Layout
There are very few restrictions in the rules on how you layout your boat, the only restrictions that are there are for safety reasons, to ensure the boat has enough bouyancy, and is strong enough.

Most plywood Javelins in New Zealand have been built as "cockpit" boats, that is where they have an enclosed main bulkhead and bouyancy compartment under the foredeck, and built in sidedecks, but that the crew stands on the floor of the boat, which is also the skin of the hull. The most obvious example of something like this is a 470. The plywood boats are built in this manner because of the inherent weight of the plywood means you need to minimise the amount of material you use in the hull, and that normally dosn't allow you to build a hull to the minimum weight with a false floor in it.

Foam Javelins are built either as Cockpit boats, or more frequently with false floors, which either run up to the main bulkhead, or which sometimes run all the way to the stem of the boat under the foredeck, with a ring frame as the main bulkhead.

If you decide to build a false floored Javelin, here is the suggested plan of the frames under the false floor.

Fittings and Controls
You can use pretty much whatever controls, and fittings you like in your boat, there are a few obscure restrictions in the rules, but pretty much anything goes, and you can adjust whatever you like, when ever you like while you are sailing. Of course, its easy to go overbaord, so for a reliable, and practical layout of a false floored Javelin, see the Bungholio rigging page.

Masts and Sails
There are no restrictions on the manufacturers, or suppliers of masts and sails for Javelins, so you can use anyone in the world you like. The mast and sail measurement rules are reasonably simple, included in the measurement guidelines are diagrams to assist your sailmaker interpret the rules for how we measure the sails. If you like, and are up to it, you can even build your own sails, and mast.

We reckon our local sailmakers make the best sails however, and our dollar is not worth a lot, so they should be cheap to buy from overseas, so we can always ship a set to you if you like, and our carbon mast makers have been exporting top masts for years, so they also might be worth a crack.

Again, its easy to say look at the rules when rigging a mast, but sometimes that can be a little hard to figure out without seeing a real Javelin mast. This rigging diagram (thanks to Kevin in Canada) shows the rules & limitations on a Javelin mast, related to the actual measurements from the mast, and hull of Bungholio.

Questions & Comments
If there is anything else that would really help you in your project that we have forgotten to put in, or you have any further questions please contact us. If you are able to provide any more information on your own projects which we can share around, that would be great as well.