Dinghy Boat Plans | Multihulls in the islands

Dinghy Boat Plans

We are anchored in Prince Rupert Bay in Dominca today. The sail down from the Saints was in 30-35 knot close hauled conditions. The HFM made the crossing of 19 miles in 3 hours with three reefs in the mainsail and the 1# jib. When tacking into the bay we had to sail into an excelleration wind zone with gusts up to 40. With the jib furled in half we still put the sheer down to the water for the first time but had no problem tacking in and anchoring under sail. We have renamed these the exzilleration zones. There are 93 sailboats anchored here today. Five years ago at the same time there were only 10 yachts. Times are changing. The town boasts new roofs, docks, a half built huge hotel , and is remarkably clean. The place has gone through a clean up act. 

Having asked the boat boys how business is with all the yatchs about they say it is down because not so many charter boats that spend the money, just cruisers that only spend a bit in each island. They understand that our boats are our homes . But they do their best to help out and to see what $ can be earned from this crowd. 

Yesterday , Tim , Gayle, Rachel , I and our daughter Lillian climbed and hiked up one of the mountain peaks here taking 5 hours for this hike. It is mostly strait up on slippery leaves, rocks and mud. Going up the trails is hard but going down is worse as its so steep and slippery.

Today is recovery day so I will post some boat pictures in various categories .

I will be showing cruising multis mostly. A simple nice cat.

A fast looking tri in Guadaloupe sailed by a young couple.

This tri comes apart for shipping.

An oldie foiler. This tri has got to have some tales to tell.

This I belive is a Rodger Hatfield design . Built in plywood. Very simple and very strong.

Going to rot in Guadaloupe as this tri is outdated already.

A nice old Newick wooden tri in the Saints.

Simple plywood catamran . Truth is it takes as much time to build this boat as the HFMS as you have to do every thing perfect. The HFM in plywood could build 3 of these easyily. No lead though.

31 tri in Antigua. Looks fast but not so sexy.

A Nigel Irens tri getting ready for the Caribbean 600. I have had the pleasure of drinking rum and getting drunk  with this great designer talking shallow draft boat ideas and designs a few years back after a days racing during the Antigua Classic regatta . I was sailing on "Gaucho" a 65 double ended Mario Campos design from Argintina as tactian. We won third place in our class. 

This Dutch tri has anchored in front of our place last spring . They hung out for a couple of days waiting for a good weather window to sail to Bermuda in. They like light winds of 10-15 knots of wind as this tri would sail at 4-5 knots faster than wind speed so in 12 knts they would be doing close to 18 knts. When the wind got up so would the seas and so would the spray, motion and noise. After 18 knts they would then have to slow down to be comfortable. All boats are a compromise.

The Dutch speak such perfect English it makes me feel like I should go back and study my own language again. The woman that was sailing on this tri had built it herself years before with a husband and then sold it. With a new partner she found it again and bought it back. A work of art and a sailing machine.

Here is Lew Mcgregger on his Russell Brown Proa " Cimba" cruising with us on Hogfish 23 years ago. 

What a great concept. So much fun to watch them sail into a bay heading into the fartest Cornner with no room to move, suddenly stop , swing the mainsail around and sail back and out on a new tack and new bow.

This is Rodger Hatfields 31 tri built and designed by him in wood,ply and nomex. Here we are sailing out of Salt Run in St. Croix to go over to St. Thomas to do some warranty work on the first wave piercer power tri. This boat was a dream to sail as it was so fast you could just breeze by any sailboat. We closed reached over the 42 miles at an average of 18 knots an hour. This shot was taken 24 years ago.

This is my own Dick Newick Val  31 trimaran that I salvaged from a remote island in the Bahamas. It was sunk up a very hard to reach creek. I will be bringing this boat back to life when we return from this cruise. Its taken apart now and up high and dry for the Hurricane season.  It should be very fast as I will use all my knowledge to keep her light and strong with todays modern materials. So far I have removed whats not needed and she has risen by 6" . I feel this will be the fastest Val to date when Iam done. Iam looking forward to this project. This boat will be my fantasy speedster if I can handle the pressure. Ive told Rachel she will have to share a tooth brush and only wear bikini bottoms with Pareos only. Must stay light and fast.

This tri and my other sloop project are both 31 long have the same size masts and sail area. The tri weighs 1,900 lbs  designed vs the sloop at 9,800 lbs. The tri has one bunk. The sloop We can live in comfortably.

When we eventually sell the HFMS these will be our Bahama sailboats. I hope to live long enough to enjoy these boats.

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Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum | Yachting Monthly Capsize Video

Pontoon Boat Plans Aluminum

Yachting Monthly have a very interesting  video of a capsize test on their YouTube Channel. I only became aware of it yesterday when it was highlighted by Scuttlebutt Sailing News.

Many have read the accounts that I have written about our capsize experience on the Didi 38 "Black Cat" in the Cape To Rio Race 2014. It is not possible to visualise what it is like to be there in that situation, even if you sit inside your boat and try to imagine it turning around you but this video goes a long way to help visualise it. It is not fully realistic because the roof stays at the top as the boat rotates, so the world is rotating around the boat rather than the boat rotating within the world around it. To provide better visualisation the camera needs to stay upright while the boat goes upside-down.

Bear in mind that this test is in flat water and the boat is rotated quite slowly from upright to upside-down, then rights itself quickly. Normally a capsize will happen in seas that are large and confused, so it is a much more violent process than seen in the video, with the boat being thrown in confused directions while it capsizes. Despite that, it is worth watching, to see the way that crew, equipment, etc was moved around the cabin and to see just how much water came in even in that still water.

It is not an experience that I would recommend to anyone, yet it is an experience that I am glad to have had and to have survived.

It also validates the toughness of the methods of construction that I have used for these plywood designs, that "Black Cat" came through with minimal damage.

To see our range of designs to carry you across the dam or around the world, please visit http://dixdesign.com/

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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 Skiff | BOW SPRITS and Yachting PENIS envy

Boat Plans Skiff

 

 Anchored in Antigua this past week has been great to see all the new Yachts and old favorites.

Going to shore in the dinghy I spotted a great big huge blue masking taped penis on the stern of the motor yacht " NERO". Never got the story behind this as yet but I wanted to share it with you all plus some other favorites.

I hope you can see it . Its just under the sheer cove stripe.

A nice phallus sprit 

A new schooner with a modern one

Your basic one

Oh... Its So big.

Modern one

Heres one coming out of the deck.

Id show you a picture of Hogfish Maximuss bow sprit but its so small compared to these I will refrain for now. Too embarrassing.

 Oh  , Ok...here it is. Dont laugh !

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Boat Plans Aluminum | Shoal draft sailboats

Boat Plans Aluminum

In the islands here I get to see lots of other shoal draft sailboats . 98% are designs from Europeans. They have lots of places over there with big tides so they want boats that can dry out with out any problems.

Most of these designs sport twin rudders, swing ballast keels , are built in aluminum, steel, wood and glass. They average a bit more depth than the HFM being mostly in the 31/2 depth range verses my 27" draft. 

All the boats shown here are here now sailing about. Enjoy!

Kelt 38 swing keel fiberglass.

French aluminum sloop ,1 meter draft , twin rudder swing keel.

Similar type of swing keel boat but built in glass. I did not notice the family was taking the afternoon swim and shower. 

Ted Hood design, Fiberglass 38 centerboard french built. 41/2 draft.

French aluminum go any where twin rudder swing keel design. The twin dagger boards on the stern are used when going downwind for better control. They also use one to leeward when going to weather as they are slightly toed in as to give lift. Draft over 1 meter.

Nice sturdy sailing machine.

French Ovini sloop. Lots of these about . Shoal draft centerboard. Single rudder. This boat has the disease . TOO much stuff.

French one off made in Fiberglass. Centerboard, 1 meter draft. Nice 

Rachel speaks French and I dont. She learned it in high school.  All the Frenchmen that I ask about their boats in English and sign language try and tell me about their vessels. Its lots of fun. They are all very nice to me . I have told Rachel my fantasy is to hook up with a French girl that only speaks French and cannot understand me, vs Versa. So she speaks French to me and we keep this illusion alive at times..... Works for me.

Intresting French sloop in glass. You can see the daggerboard on deck. The prop must be a nightmare with all the freaking fish pots around here. The French islands are killing everything. I hate fish pots for the destruction of what they do to the inviroment.

Would not want to bump over a shoal with this kind of rudder set up.

 What a wonderful shape. This is one design I would love to sail on to see whats up.

French fiberglass over some kind of planking, steel centerboard and rudders, lots of stuff on deck.

Doing some glass work to the keel.

French, steel cutter , keel with twin out board daggerboards. Very old school hardware on deck so this boat has probably been everywhere. Iam not a fan of the daggerboard trunks so close to the outside of the hull as its very hard to see whats going on in between the two. Not much room. Most steel boats rust through from the inside out. Will look fine on the outside but poke at it from inside and bingo! Theres a hole.

Heres its complicated rudder system. A daggerboard rudder too.

A big Dutch aluminum Centerboard sloop with a thick fairing on the intire hull that is giving problems under the waterline. Tons of small holes. I have seen this in plenty of aluminum boats. Iam not a fan of aluminum below the waterline. My neighbor in the Bahamas has a French built one off boat pulled up on his land. Its 31 long and has been corroding from the inside out with hundreds of small holes while up on dry land! Yikes! Not for me . I like glass over wood. Ask any one that has been out here sailing for years will say that glass over wood is the best, easiest to repair and maintain construction. Fiberglass is strong but not as strong as a good cold molded hull. Steel rusts from day one, aluminum can be an electrolysis nightmare and is not maintence free, fiberglass cored boats have to be built right and can be fragile if its a lightweight design, classic wood is fine if you can do the maintence yourself but having grown up in a carvel planked ketch that always leaked, having sunk in a small French built plywood planked sloop with out a glass overlay I will stick to my system of heavy glass over multiple plywood skins. Solid glass can last forever it seems, but you have to hide it just like on a metal boat so you end up building the boat twice... Kinda. Plus solid glass sweats like a metal boat so if you are going to be in cold weather you have to insulate it too.

 Heres a very fast Pogo 38 fiberglass ultra light sloop with a swing keel. 

Same design, Pogo 

These sloops are very wide , light in weight built in core. They pound like crazy and make tons of noise, 

But can be very fast if you know how to handle them. You cannot carry much in them either because of their light displacement. Many have been sailed all over the world in all oceans. I would love to do a cruise in one but they cost too much for me. I built the HFM in 1999 launched and sailing for $35,000.00 US $ so I would be short about $ 150,000.00 more for one of these beautys.

Small steel sloop with a swing keel. This design has packed in a lot in a 31 hull. Draft looks to be 1 meter.

21 plywood sloop with daggerboards.

Intresting boat.

Hogfish sporting her French curtesy flag and some laundry .

Wish we could lift the skirts on all these other world crushing shoal draft boats to see whats underneath but I will show you Hoggys bottom here again.

Just shows you that there are all kinds of ways to get to the same goal of shallow water adventuring.

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