Boat Plans Arch Davis | Time to Order for Winter Projects

Boat Plans Arch Davis

The weather is getting colder in the north and our minds move to thoughts of staying inside to keep warm. Staving off cabin fever from being trapped inside becomes a problem, particularly if you have children. Keeping them interested and active can become a problem as the cold months go by.

Building a small boat in your workshop or basement can do wonders in this situation,. It draws the young ones away from computer games and cell phones, teaching them new skills that they can use throughout their lives. They will be helping to create something with character, something that would not have existed without their work, which will give them a lot of fun in the warmer months and which they will appreciate more and look after better because they helped to create it with their own hands. We all take more care of things if we had a big hand in creating them.

Argie 10 built by 2 young brothers while Dad was away

We have designs that are well-suited to building in small and cozy spaces. Some of these boats have been built in bedrooms or dining rooms, even apartments or basements that have only standard doors through which to remove them when completed. They can be built with basic hand tools; you dont need a well-outfitted workshop nor to be a woodworking craftsman to produce a small boat of which you can be proud.

Louis de Lassus built his Argie 15 in his Paris basement

The plans to kick off a project like this make a good Christmas present, whether for a husband or one of the children. If this is your plan, please order soon to ensure that you have the package before Christmas. We will soon be closed for a few weeks and will not be able to supply from 10th December through to 14th January.

To see our full range of designs, please go to http://dixdesign.com/ and our pricelist.

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Boat Plans Aluminium | Long Distance in a Bigger Boat

Boat Plans Aluminium

My last post was about people going long distance in small boats and most of my readers know that I am soon to go long distance in a slightly bigger boat. This will be on the Didi 38 "Black Cat".

She is well on the way to being ready, with smaller items like installation of new electronics going on and the major still outstanding items being to tune the rig and test the new sails (which have still to be delivered). She is looking awesome, after a full repaint and new graphics. This 18-year old lady is looking young again.

"Black Cat" with her new paint & graphics.

Preparation of "Black Cat" for her next adventure has been a lengthy process but a worthwhile one. It was unfortunately extended by 2 weeks due to damage sustained at Royal Cape Yacht Club during a gale just after she was relaunched when the repaint had been completed. Cape Town is well known for furious winds and this one apparently gusted to 75 knots in the yacht basin. Some mooring chains holding the marinas broke and "Black Cat" was in the unfortunate position of serving as the meat in a steel sandwich, not good for a plywood boat.

My navigator for this race is Dave Immelman, nicknamed Wavy. Dave has been in charge of the preparations and has done a great job of it. That includes getting the extra work done that resulted from poor "Black Cat" getting squeezed tighter than any lady in a corset. She has been freed, repaired, repainted (again), given the OK by the doctor (scrutineer) and is raring to go.

New Cat logo on port side. Starboard has the butt end.

 This is a boys adventure on which we are embarking. As in 1996 and 2000, "Black Cat" will be the only lady enjoying it with us. That said, we would not be doing it without the support of the other ladies in the lives of all of the crew, namely wives, mothers, daughters and others. They tolerate our passion for boats, adventures and ocean crossings. Maybe some of them look forward to our departure to get us out of their hair, I dont know. I do know that they will be happy to see us again when we return and we will be equally happy to be greeted by them when our adventure is over. We will return home with another big drawer full of images in our memory banks, memories that cannot be equalled by any travel documentary or computer game, no-matter how good the filming or graphics may be.

For those who have never experienced this, it is a big one to add to your bucket list. Having done it 3 times before, I can say that it will take a big bucket if it is to hold other items that are bigger than this one. But you have to have a strong sense of adventure and not be easily scared. If you dont have those qualities you will be petrified at times, incapacitated by sheer terror while your shipmates are enjoying a great roller coaster ride that goes on for 2-4 weeks (depending on the speed of your chosen boat), with no chance of getting off the ride.

We have sailed this boat very hard in the past and the new go-fast goodies on her will help us to do so again. We sail her safely but we do so sometimes at very high speed, with lots of spray flying by and mixed in with flying fish, squid, albatross  and even the occasional sword fish. "The Cat" enjoys it and allows us to enjoy it with her.



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Boat Plans Butler | Paper Jet to Okoumefest

Boat Plans Butler

Every year in May Chesapeake Light Craft hosts a demo day on Kent Island, in northern Chesapeake Bay.  This is to give potential home builders the opportunity to test the various boats ahead of buying a kit. CLC cut the CNC kits for our plywood boats in USA, so we join the happy day of boating on the beach.

We had a two Paper Jets there last year and I will have my own yellow prototype, PJ #1, there again this year. Those who want to test sail her, please join us on the beach at Matapeake State Park, between 9am and 5pm.

Dudley preparing PJ #007 for sailing, Okoumefest 2013.

PJ #007 returning from a test sail, Okoumefest 2013.

PJ #001 patiently waits on the beach for her turn to be rigged. Okoumefest 2013.

Paper Jet sail numbers are now up to 84 and growing. This is a fun boat to sail. Come along to Okoumefest to see and sail her for yourself.

To see more about this design and the others in our wide range, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

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Boat Plans Aluminium Australia | Update on Didi Sport 15 and Didi 950

Boat Plans Aluminium Australia

I have recently added two new radius chine plywood designs to our range and wrote about them on this blog. Here are updates on both boats.

Yesterday I visited the prototype of the Didi Sport 15 (DS15) that is being built by Hunter Gall in Virginia Beach. I hadnt seen it in the flesh for a few weeks and wanted to see how the deck is looking as it comes together. Hunter is doing a really nice job of his project, working slowly but meticulously.

His boat, "Scallywag", is looking very pretty. He stained the hull surfaces blue and the deck surfaces red before doing the epoxy coatings and these colours will be highlighted by areas of clear-finished timber. It all entailed a tremendous amount of extra work to get it right than if he had painted it in the normal way. The final result is very attractive and she will be an eye-catcher when complete. Hunter can be pleased with the overall results.

The deck configuration that I designed is unusual, with a raised mast deck and wave-breaker above a flat foredeck and the open self-draining cockpit. It gives a decidedly retro image to the deck, over the thoroughly modern hull. It reminds me somewhat of the Lightweight Australian Sharpies that my Dad sailed in South Africa when I was a child. That makes it  somehow fitting that Hunter Gall is Australian, I am South African and we have ended up working together on this project in USA.

Hunter Galls DS15 project nearing completion

Other news on the DS15 is that work will start in the next few weeks on moulds to build a composite version in Europe. I will release more information about it after I return from the Cape to Rio Race, by which time the builder may be ready to start receiving enquiries.

The other boat was the Didi 950, for which the prototype kit has been cut and will be delivered to the builder in the next week or two. It appears that this is going to be a popular design because we have sold plan packages for another three boats since announcing the design.

Didi 950, bigger sister to the DS15

 One of those boats will result in a variation on the design, with a lifting keel. A lifting keel was part of the original concept for the builder of the prototype but he decided in the end on the simplicity of a fixed keel. The lifting keel proved to be a very viable option, using the same basic keel support arrangement as the fixed keel with no structural redesign. The major difference will be moving the motor aft to a position under the companionway, driving a saildrive rather than a shaft. This is to make room for the lifting keel to rise through the galley central locker unit.

The prototype of this design is to be built in Ohio, USA. The others that have been ordered will be built in Australia, Latvia and Greece. There is interest from other countries as well.

To see our full range of designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

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Canoe Boat Plans | Didi 950 Radius Clean Workshops

Canoe Boat Plans

Mike Vermeersch has completed the first layer of the radius panel on one side of his Didi 950 hull. Although the surface is not up to final level, the hull shape is now much clearer.

The skin will be trimmed back to centreline when the other side is fitted.

The front face of the forward bulkhead will have a wood capping.

In theses photos the radius skin has still to be trimmed back to hull centreline. When that is done, the shape of the forefoot as it fairs into the bow will become clear.

Nice overall view of the hull shape.

Clean and powerful stern sections.

Thanks to Mike for these great photos. A few people have commented about the cleanliness of Mikes project and also of his workshop. I like to work clean on my boatbuilding projects but Mike takes it to a whole new level. That might be due to his engineering background.

The benefits of working this way are many. A very important one is that it is much easier to clean up runs and drips of excess glue etc before it cures than to do it later. If a lump or run of epoxy or resorcinol is allowed to cure, it will be stronger than the surface of the wood and will rip out pieces of wood while you remove it with a chisel. You also need to thump the head of the chisel with a mallet or at least your hand, to move it along. Expect occasional bruising of the palm of your hand in the process. You can grind or sand it off mechanically but that is always with a risk of damaging the surface and the equipment cannot generally get into tight corners. You can more easily remove it with a slightly blunt chisel or a scraper soon after it reaches initial cure, without risk of surface damage. Resorcinol is really nice in this way because it becomes rubbery and can be easily and very cleanly sliced off. Epoxy will drag on the tool and not trim off as cleanly, so the natural tendency is to leave it for later when it is hard.

The other major benefits of a clean workshop are that it is just so much nicer to work in a clean environment and you are less likely to hurt yourself by standing on odd-shaped bits of wood, slipping on wood shavings or gluing your shoes to the floor. I generally sweep the work area about every 2nd day or more often if I am doing something that produces lots of dust or waste.

Please visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/ to see our very broad range of boat designs for both amateur and professional boatbuilders.

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Plywood Boat Plans | Didi 950 Projects

Plywood Boat Plans

There appears to be considerable interest in my posts about the boats being built to our Didi 950 design. This is a radius chine plywood design with hard chine in the topsides, designed to fit into the Classe 950 box rule. In the past few days I have received a bunch of new photos that show the build process clearly, as well as some updated progress photos.

Before going into the new photos, you might like to read the article that I posted today on my Boatbuilder Tips for Amateurs blog about how to construct building stocks or beds, the foundation off which the skeleton of a wooden boat is built. It is illustrated with photos of the Didi 950 that is being built by Fred Grimminck in Australia. The photos below are mostly of that same project, being built from scratch without a kit.

The photo below shows the various backbone components, all of which slot eggcrate-fashion into the bulkheads. The slots help to locate the bulkheads and backbones correctly relative to each other. The bow and stern have single backbone on centreline and the mid-part of the hull as two backbones that run down each side of the keel support box. The two shorter pieces on the right are the paired double-backbone parts. Next toward the left is the aft backbone, which turns up at the far end to support the transom. Extreme left is the bow backbone, which turns up at the far end to form the stem and supports a bow bulkhead into which the forward ends of the stringers are located.

Didi 950 backbone components. Click on all photos to enlarge.

The photos below show a few of the forward bulkheads with the bow backbone dry-fitted in place. The backbone has doublers just below deck level for through-bolting the bow chainplate. The doublers can be seen at the forward lower end of the backbone.

Didi 950 bow backbone and forward bulkheads

Didi 950 bulkheads and backbones

In this next photo, the transom doubler has been set up as a doubler and the stringers etc run through, then are trimmed flush. When the transom is glued over the doubler the end-grain of the longitudinals will be covered and protected. Look through the 4th cutout from left through the doubler to see how the aft end of the aft backbone turns up against the inside face of the doubler. The backbone has locating tabs that slot through the doubler, seen as light-coloured marks on centreline of the doubler. In the lower photo the transom is being glued over the outside of the doubler.

Didi 950 transom doubler

Didi 950 transom being glued over doubler.

The sheer clamps on this design sit diagonally across the corner at the intersection between hull sides and decks. They are screwed and glued to cleats on the faces of all bulkheads. In this photo the sheer clamp is clamped to those cleats. You can also see how the stringers are slotted through the bulkheads. Once the hull skin has been glued on, these junctions become very strong and rigid

Didi 950 sheer clamp

Looking forward along the hull just prior to fitting the bottom skin. The wide stringers on both sides are the tangent stringers, with doublers to back up the joint between flat bottom panels and radius skin panels at the turn of the bilge.  The single aft backbone can be seen running through to the 3rd bulkhead from the bottom of the photo. The double backbone runs forward from the 2nd bulkhead from the bottom of the photo, then changes back to a single backbone further forward, also visible.

Didi 950 bottom stringers and backbones

Stringers in the forward part of the hull, mainly showing the radius area. The two broad stringers are at the tangents, joining the flat and radiused skins together. Between them are three radius stringers, over which the double-skin radius will be formed. Below the lower of the two tangent stringers are the stringers for the side skin panels.

Didi 950 stringers

This last photo shows Mike Vermeeschs boat, being built from a kit in Ohio. Mike has the side panels all dry-fitted to check for fit ahead of gluing in place. Looks like a nice fit. The bow will be capped with solid wood, which will cover and protect the end-grain of the stringers.

Didi 950 hull side panels

Thank you to both Fred Grimminck and Mike Vermeersch for taking the trouble to send me these photos and allowing their use.

To see our other designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/ .

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