The first Oz Goose Building Group USA is in Portland South East Virginia and has started building its first boat. The Oz Goose is a simply built plywood sailing dinghy for adults that sails well.
Their first build has gone 3D. They can be contacted via their website Box Boat Racing League or on Their Oz Goose Building Group on Facebook.
In the first place they built a model while discussing which boat. After receiving the materials for the full size boat a few weeks ago they started building their first Oz Goose. The purpose is to build a fleet.
Sailing and sailboat racing does not need to be expensive
They are experienced small boat sailors who are tired of the expense of racing conventional boats. Their aim is that each Oz Goose should cost about $1500 to put on the water all up. The Goose sails well with one to three people aboard.
So that is 5 boats and possibly 10 sailors racing for the same price as one International Laser getting one person on the water.
Scott Knapp contacted Roy (the main guy in the Philippines) and me in January:
Hi Michael and Roy,
Being an amateur boatbuilder and small boat sailor, I have watched the growth and success of the Oz Goose racing fleet in the Philippines with great interest. Your success in championing affordable community boatbuilding and racing has been very inspiring to me and several of my small boat building and sailing friends.
To that end, a small group of us here in coastal southeastern Virginia have decided to try to emulate your success by using the Oz Goose as a platform for our own community boatbuilding, sailing and racing organization, which we have named the Box Boat Racing League. We have purchased our first set of plans and construction of boat number one is underway.
Structure for the first Oz Goose Building Group USA
Scott continued:
We’d really like to pattern our model of how the boats get financed and built on how it appears that you are doing it in the Philippines, specifically, one, two or more individuals or families, pooling their effort, both monetary and physical, coupled with some type of sponsorship.
We very much appreciate what you’ve made publicly available, and any additional tips, lessons learned, or organizational information that you are willing to share with us in support of our efforts will be greatly valued.
Michael, thanks for designing such a good, approachable boat and Roy, thanks for having the vision to create a community racing organization around it!
With your permission, I will keep you both updated on our efforts.
While organising the basics – get a plan and build a model from the sailboat plan – it saves time later
They didn’t start with building full sized boats. To get started an accurate model was built while the organisation was being worked through. This reduced the building time for the full sized boat.
Building a model will sort out many questions before building the real boat which will save a huge amount of time. Model can be balsa, plywood or even cardboard.
Contact the Box Boat Racing League – the first Oz Goose Building Group USA
This is the first building group to set up outside the Philippines.
Please join their Facebook Group – SE Virginia Box boat racing League to hear the latest developments.