Free and shareware boat design software

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Hulls software
Develop your own multichine hulls up to ten chines using Carlson Design's excellent share ware. The download is at the bottom of the page - do make sure you have the required Visual Basic run-time file vbrun300.dll in your System folder. An alternative is Carene software. The site also includes sail design software.

Alternative Hulls tutorial
The author of these pages has written an alternative tutorial for Gregg Carlson's Hulls software, which can be used for developing hulls with up to six chines. A link to a page of hulls including a number of classic types can be found elsewhere in these pages.

Carene update
Carene's promoters have decided that Carene50 should be withdrawn so if you have it bookmarked you may now find your link to it dead. However, they have decided to offer a free download of Carene 2002uk, which will allow the user to create a hull with two chines in a similar way to Carene 50 and will allow saving and printing of designs and export to dxf files . If you want to create a hull with three chines or to use the multi plank setting (up to 20 planks evenly spaced) for round bilge hulls with the additional feature of auto-calculation and output of plank overlaps for clinker construction, you will need to purchase the licence.

Test out your design
Test out your design in detail with Hullforms 6, a DOS computer-aided design and analysis-style program. Grab it now, while your computer will still drive DOS programs...

Calculators
Java-based calculators for working out various things, including capsize risk.

FloatPBO Spreadsheet
This boat design spreadsheet calculator from the UK boating journal Practical Boat Owner looks as if it could be useful.

Plyboats
The highly regarded Plyboats boat design software is now available in the form of a usable demo. 

Carlson Design Goodies
Gregg Carlson's page now includes a pair of free mast design programs for round wooden masts. The first develops strakes for round masts, while the second calculates mast size and strength for stayed and unstayed rigs based on sail area and wood types. 

Hull optimising software
The Michlet hull optimiser is free for personal use. I gather Hans Friedel used it when he was working on one of his recent canoe designs.

New free CAD source
If you're getting a bit fed up with the free version of TurboCAD, you might like to try this one. It looks a bit complex, but it does offer three dimensional working.

Canoe design software
Check out the downloads area at this site for some impressive-looking canoe design software complete with a voluminous manual.

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