Thank you Windy and Oliver,

Your answers  are very helpful and have given me much to consider – I must admit that I hadn’t considered the series 2 as an option because I’d wrongly assumed it was designed for increased speed and performance rather than for the cruising/day sail enthusiast but also as I know the series 1 so well my inclination was toward that vessel.

And with regard to the home/self build – if the series 1 is a more challenging build then so be it – I’m in it for the challenge and for the pleasure of building something in wood. I have a background which includes furniture making and fabricating timber sculptures so I’m reasonably confident that I can rise to the challenge.

Thank you Windy for the timber advise – I had thought that Cedar would be a good option and it would appear that New Zealand has plenty of good stock – and I think it’ll be a more attractive option than the Obeche. And Oliver, like you I’d always thought my old GP had Pine stringers and Chines – but having looked at lots of images of Obeche its colour is very similar to that of Pine so maybe that was what it was. On another note – in my online search for an alternative I found many comments from modelers and craft based woodworkers who use Obeche because it’s easy to sculpt but worryingly referred to it as a harder version of Balsa – not sure about that!

I have plenty of time to keep looking – I’m not in a rush and there are plenty of jobs on our wooden house to complete before I can start the build but it’s very exciting to look and plan and dream!

Oh and would you have any comments on timber spars? Any experience here?

Thanks again

Jon