Maughan,

As Mr. Roberts already said, "drawing" a beach cat is not the same as "designing" a beach cat. Drawing is the easy part and CAD/3D softwares certainly help - but the tough part remains calculating everything.

As an example, I've seen architecture students prepare colorful CAD drawings, with 3D views, furniture, sometimes with animated visits, etc. It is all wonderfull to see, almost artistic creations, but the drawings often represent inapropriate buildings in terms of structural soundness, thermal and sound insulation, internal distribuition, practicity, economy, etc. Those essential features require previous calculation and knowledge not provided by the drawing software.

If it is for fun, draw as many beach cats, trailers and parts to please you (as I do with my "pivoting dagger rudders" ), but common sense indicates that we should not build anything without consulting an experienced engineer beforehands.

I follow this advice even in my own profession: when we built our house, in spite of being a civil engineer and my wife being an excellent architect, we paid for other professionals to calculate and review everything prior to building. Even aesthetic aspects were reviewed by an artist. And it was worth many times the cost.

Take care,