Boat Plans And Kits | New rig for Didi 29 Retro

Boat Plans And Kits

The Didi 29 Retro was commissioned by a client in Cape Town, to build for himself for competition in the classic yacht races in the Caribbean. He wanted a boat with modern underbody and appendages but with a large gaff rig of classic configuration, to race in the modern classic division.

Underbody of Didi 29 Retro

Last year I was asked to draw a more conservative cruising gaff rig for the design, to better suit those who have no aspirations to race with a big crew or simply want to cruise. That resulted in the cruising gaff rig with about 20% less sail area on the same foretriangle height.

Didi 29 Retro racing gaff rig at left, cruising rig at right

This year I was asked to draw a more modern rig for it, which developed into the squaretop Marconi rig. This one will better suit most sailors, being easier to handle and easier to understand for those who dont know gaff rigs. On sail area, it fits between the two gaff rigs and it will be interesting to see how the three compare on the water.

Didi 29 Retro with squaretop Marconi rig

The squaretop Marconi rig suits the aesthetics of this hull rather well. It would be my choice if I were building this boat for myself. Should be an exciting boat to sail too, able to take advantage of the power of modern stable sail fabrics.

To see more of this and our other designs, go to http://dixdesign.com/

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Boat Plans African Queen | Sentinel Explorers Racing

Boat Plans African Queen

I designed the Sentinel Explorer for Sentinel Boats in 1991. My client was the importer of the Drascombe range of boats built by Honnor Marine but had not been able to sell any of those boats due to the high cost of importing them into South Africa. The brief was to draw my design to a broadly similar concept to the Drascombe Lugger but with sloop gunter rig instead of the yawl gunter rig of the Lugger.

My design was for a much fuller boat, with more volume on less overall length and very different hull section shape, resulting in a boat with more stability and considerably more speed. The UK builders of the Lugger took exception to the design and tried to shut down production, claiming that the moulds for our boat had been made from an existing Lugger hull, which was patently nonsense and no more than bullying the little guy in the playground. It lasted for several years but eventually went away, leaving a very bad taste for the low standard of business ethics displayed by Honnor Marine.

Ironically, Honnor Marine went broke and the company was bought by Bob and Norma Brown. The new iteration of Honnor Marine is now builder of my Cape Cutter 19 design in UK.

Production of the Explorer has been very low key, with small numbers built over the years. I heard a few years ago that there was a fleet of Explorers gathering on Langebaan Lagoon, on the West Coast of South Africa, with owners enthusiastic over their boats. Today I have received photos of this group racing as a one-design fleet in the Sandy Bay Yacht Club Easter Regatta. I have to admit that this is the first time that I have seen more than two Explorers sailing together. The time that I did see two together, I was racing one of them in the Hout Bay Dinghy Regatta, with my late friend Bryan Ferreira as crew.

Explorer start line action. "Dawdle", on the left, won the Easter Regatta.

Explorers dicing to windward in the Easter Regatta.

Explorer #59 being chased by Challenger #20.

It is good to see a smaller sister, the Sentinel Challenger, racing in the same fleet. The Explorer is only built in GRP from moulds but the Challenger can be built from plywood to our plans.

To see more about these and our other designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

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Boat Plans Australia | Wooden Boat Show

Boat Plans Australia

Summer heat is setting in and minds are turning to activities that can keep us cool. Time for us to get out on the water and go boating.

Time also for the Wooden Boat Show, which takes us north on a 500 mile road trip from the rapidly over-heating Virginia to the somewhat cooler climes of New England, more particularly the very beautiful Mystic Seaport. I must admit that in June/July I think that part of Connecticut must be a great place to live. Then I think about how much I dislike the (much milder) cold of a Virginia winter and know that I was built for much more tropical places.

The Wooden Boat Show  will be 26-28 June and we will once again be exhibiting our bright yellow Paper Jet prototype. Close by, in the "I Built It Myself" section, will be the prototype of our new 16ft garvey design. This is "Inlet Runner", exhibited by amateur builder Kevin Agee of Hampton, Virginia. He is working long hours into the night to get it finished in time for the show. It will be showing off its very fresh paint job. Never having built a boat of any size or type before, he has surprised himself with the high standard of work that he has achieved.

Kevin Agees "Inlet Runner" 16ft garvey nearing completion.

We are also using this opportunity to do the official launch of my new book "South Atlantic Capsize - Lessons Taught by a Big Ocean Wave". We will have copies on hand at a special show price and you may be able to pin me down long enough to sign your copy. Special show price only to those who visit us at the show.

To see more about our boat designs, please visit our main website or our new mobile website.

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Boat Plans Stitch And Glue | A little progress

Boat Plans Stitch And Glue

Spring is here for sure and I do have a little progress to report. Ive not made as much headway as I would have like to in the last few weeks, but like the song says, a  little bit is better than nada.

I think Ive taken the salon as far as I can in regards to building cabinets and furniture. The latest project completed was fabricating the end caps for the dinette benches, and a small table that will sit between the two comfy chairs we will have. I think the small table will house  the am/fm stereo for the salon, and has a drawer for stashing the remote control for the TV. The end caps for the bench, while  not a job, required a bit of time. Because of the 16" width, the end caps needed to be glued up. I had to decide  how I wanted to have the bench seat riser connect to the end cap and chose a dado which had to be plowed in to the end cap. I did not want to see end grain wood on the end caps, so I fabricated a cap that had a dado plowed in to it so it could slip over the top of the end cap. While I was building the end caps for the salon dinette, I also did the same thing for the wheel house bench seating.

I took a look at doing some work in the wheel house, but felt that it is going to be better waiting until the super structure is landed on the hull in a few months. The wheel house floor has a decent camber to it, and also falls off grade forward to aft. I dont think the super structure is going to rack when we lift it, but Im not 100% sure it wont, and theres no point fastening any finish ply to the front of the wheel house if theres a chance it could move. I did figure out the camber of the wheel  house floor, and fabricated the face frame for the bench seat drawer unit. I gave myself plenty of room to scribe the face frame to the floor and still have an inch of face frame left on the bottom once it was fit. Because I not had the face frame built, I had the drawer size in front of me, so I decided to build the three drawers that will go in the assembly.  The far port side opening in the face frame is for the air conditioner vent that supplies the wheel house.

Because I could possibly be drilling holes in the wheel house face frame and the four end caps for the bench seats, I did not put any finish on these parts. All these little odds and ends parts I"m making will make assembly at the launch site go much more quickly .

For the last four or five years, Ive been threatening myself to go and buy a real planer to build this boat. The current planer I  have is a  15 year old Delta 12" thickness planer that is really undersized for how much lumber Im running through it. I really need a 15", 240 volt machine with a three knife cutter  head. The Delta machine has seen better days, but seems to still get the job done. Having sharp knives in the machine is the only way the it has a fighting chance of keeping up with what I ask it to do. When I first bought the machine, I had a local sharpening guy do the knife sharpening work for me. The problem I had with the professional sharpening is that the blades seemed to dull quickly. The edge they produced, while sharp, did not have enough meat on the back side, so the cutting edge would fail, then dull, and begin to leave ridges on the work. As long as the knives do not have a severe nick in them, I prefer to sharpen them myself. To sharpen my jointer and planer knives, I use a jig cut in to a piece of hardwood to  hold the knife at the correct angle. The sharpening media I use is 300 grit, 2" wide adhesive sand paper wrapped around a hard wood block. Before I put the knife in the holding jig, I flatten the back of he knife using the 300 grit block. With the blades held firmly at the correct angle and the jig clamped in the vise, not much time is needed to revive the edge.  Once the edge looks good and all the shiny spots have been taken off of the edge, Ill hone it with the same block using 600 grit self adhesive paper. Sharp tools are one of my pet peeves, and having them makes the work much more enjoyable and consistent.

I still have a long list of things I want to get finished before I move her out of the barn namely: Aft deck ceiling including ceiling lights, rear steamer light, rear work lights. Paint aft deck ceiling. Pull ceiling light wiring in salon and wheel house and locate switchs. Water line from salon sink to salon 1/2 bath. Salon and wheel house doors.  Hydraulic lines from engine room to anchor winch. Hydraulic lines from engine room to bow thruster. Hydraulic reservoir install. Weld vent in salon roof for gray water holding tank that I forgot. One more coat of urethane and caulk undersides of bulwark cap. Weld "D" rings to  hull to chain hull down to dolly. This is pretty  much my punch list, and Im going to try to stick to it before she leaves the barn. Hopefully, the list wont grow to much larger and Ill have her ready to move by early Summer or late Spring. The boat yard Im bringing her to is packed full right now but after the first of May, it will begin to clear out.

Cheers

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Small Boat Plans And Kits | Didi 29 Retro Progress

Small Boat Plans And Kits

Bruce Mierke is building a Didi 29 Retro in Murphy, North Carolina. Bruce is a professional boatbuilder, building her for himself and progressing nicely. He has now completed the hull and it will be turned over in a few weeks.

This design is based on the Didi 26, modified to create a more classic image. Carrying a choice of rigs, the squaretop Marconi rig below and two gaff rigs further down the page. It is a radius chine plywood design, round bilge from plywood and can be built from plans or a CNC kit. Although Bruce is a professional builder, I developed this construction method primarily for amateurs and they have built many boats to this range of designs.

Marconi rig of Didi 29 Retro

Here are the latest photos from Bruce, showing the beautiful standard of finish that he has achieved.

Beautiful hull finish.

Two gaff rigs, racing at left and cruising at right.

For more info on this and our other designs, visit http://dixdesign.com/

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Boat Plans Australia | Didi 950 Progress Lifting Keel Option

Boat Plans Australia

Mike Vermeersch in Ravenna Ohio turned over his Didi 950 hull a couple of weeks ago and sent me a video of the process.  He turned the hull with the help of a few friends, using the spit roast method and a pair of engine hoists.

With the hull settled in her new cradle, Mike has settled into doing the epoxy fillets and coatings, ahead of starting on the interior joinery.

Epoxy coatings progressing on Mikes Didi 950

While builders have been making material progress with their builds, I have been doing the drawings that detail the lifting keel version for Fred Grimminck. Fred is building his Didi 950 in Queensland, Australia. He has also turned his hull in the past fortnight.

The lifting keel version uses a keel support box of identical footprint to that of the fixed keel version. The difference is that the keel has to slide through where the motor sits in the fixed keel boat, so the motor has relocated to below the front of the cockpit and has a saildrive. The keel support box for this version has the casing built into it, with a flange at the top edge for bolting the keel securely in the down position. In the raised position, the keel is at approximately the same level as the bottom of the rudders. Draft is 2.35m (79") with the keel down and 1.15m (39") with the keel up.

The keel is lifted by means of a tackle, with the tail led to a dedicated winch that is recessed into the galley counter. This is a simple system, without the waterproofing and complication issues of leading it to a cabin roof winch.

Accommodation of the lifting keel version of the Didi 950

This lifting keel offers Didi 950 owners the possibility of having a racer or a performance cruiser, with deep draft, that can live on much shallower moorings or can access shallow anchorages.

To see our full range of designs to a wide range of concepts and materials, please go to http://dixdesign.com/.

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Boat Plans Aluminium | Kevins Garvey Progress

Boat Plans Aluminium

I wrote in January about the 16ft plywood garvey being built by Kevin Agee. Kevin is progressing nicely and benefitting from the very welcome spring that has finally arrived and eased out the rather brutal winter. Now it is easier to do woodwork and epoxy cures much faster, so work progresses more quickly. Epoxy coatings in the sealed spaces are being completed and this weekend the deck will be glued on.

Hull skin completed, interior details being fitted.

Supports for battery box and fuel tank.

Deck stringers going in, test fitting of fuel tank.

Bottom runners serve as stringers and bottom protection.

Dry-fitting deck, ahead of final installation this weekend.

Kevin Agee is doing a nice job of his project and will display it in the "I Built It Myself" section of the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport at the end of June. If you want to see this boat, that will be the place to do it.

Plans are not yet ready for selling but should be in a month or two. We will offer it as plans and instructions, with options of full-size patterns or a pre-cut plywood kit.

To see our designs for your next amateur project, please visit our website at http://dixdesign.com .


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