New Didi 26 in Germany

Ole Ehlert bought plans from us in 2006 to build a Didi 26 for himself in Kiel, Germany. It took Ole 6 years to build his boat because he lived 40 miles from the cow-shed building site, belonging to his in-laws. Two new kids and a house got in the way also but Ole kept going and launched his new boat last year.

Ole has sent me some photos of "Mary Jo", named after his daughters. It looks like he has made a beautiful job of building her. She looks very pretty on the water.

Oles new Didi 26 "Mary Jo".

 Ole says "I enjoyed building the boat from keel to mast top as well as sailing it now. It´s very fast and enters the waves as soft as cutting through butter with a hot knife!"

The Didi 26 is one of our most popular designs, a great option for those who want to compete round the buoys in a big sportboat that can also be used for weekending or short holidays. Added to that, it is of plywood construction that is within the abilities of most amateur builders, yet it looks like a round bilge GRP boat. With those benefits it is easy to understand its popularity with our builders.

Bow view of Didi 26 "Mary Jo".

 Congratulations to Ole on the beautiful conclusion to his project.

See our full range of designs at http://dixdesign.com/

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New rig for Didi 29 Retro

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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On old vices new media and timeless techniques

Chris Schwarz, owner of Lost Art Press and Editor-at-large of Popular Woodworking magazine, has a bit of a thing for leg vices. Though he calls them vises. Its a murican thing.
Last night after a lovely day out with our nephew in Greenwich I sent Chris a picture of the carpenters vice we saw on the Cutty Sark.
This morning its in a blog post on Popular Woodworkings website.
It used to take that vice weeks to cross the Atlantic, now its dashing back and forth shaking its unusual guide mechanism across the world.
Its such a bad picture Im not even going to post it here but he insisted on giving a credit. Its nice to be able to help someone from whom Ive learnt so much. I will, however post some photos of the ship. Which is amazing. I dont really like expensive restorations of rotting hulks that sit in dry dock and gather dust; boats should sail. The Cutty Sark exhibition is, however, astonishing. Not least because the boat seems to float over the heads of the people sitting in the cafe.
Its beautiful, educational and a masterpiece of engineering. Twice.
The restorers (or preservers I should say, since the ship wont work in its intended function) have tried to use a lot of the original material. Where they needed to add material theyve highlighted it. Original steel frames are white, new steel reinforcement is grey.  Its less obvious in the wood work. Much of the bright work is original and each restoration has added its own set of dutchmen, or patches, let in to the original, massive timbers. This has created a wonderful palimpsest that is testament to the longevity of our domestic hardwoods, the skill of the craftsmen and women who worked on the ship and the potential of wooden vessels to be maintained and repaired.
And that brings me back to the purpose of the blog: building a wooden boat. Little progress to report, Im afraid. Im building a bench at the moment. Chris Schwarz in one of his two (how much is there to say?) books on building workbenches says that a bench should have neither an apron nor a tool tray. Mine will have both. But then he also says "Disobey me!" so Ive taken him at his word. Im chopping mortices for the legs at the moment. Steve Branam has an excellent guide to building this bench, better even than Roy Underhills original description, so I wont be posting it here - its already done.

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DH550 Wild Vanilla Gets a New Owner

Professional boatbuilder Phil Harvey asked me to draw a 55ft cat for him using my radius chine plywood methods. I had too much work already, so Phil and I shared the design work to produce the new boat. That is the origin of the DH550 name.

Their boat, "Wild Vanilla", has been sold and will change hands in a few weeks. Her new owner took the photo below and sent it to Phil and Laura. I cant resist showing this gorgeous photo of a very pretty boat.

"Wild Vanilla" is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

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

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New Boat Vocabulary Word Coaming

One of the smarter things Ive done on the shantyboat, was to add a coaming around the edge of the cabin. A new vocab word for me as I slowly get all nautical during the one plus year shantyboat build:

coam·ing  

/?k?miNG/

Noun A raised border around a ships hatch serving to support the hatch covers and to keep out water. A similar structure around the cockpit of a boat.

The Glen-L Waterlodge plans didnt call for a coaming, since Glens cabin design was significantly different, and he wasnt nutty enough to consider board and batten as a cabin exterior material.

Take a look again at my wall cutaway diagram:

The coaming is the board labeled "edgeboard" against the inside edge of the side framing member.  My goal was to make sure that if water splashed up on the exterior board and batten, that it would not easily get into the boat, more so because I plan to fiberglass right up to and over the coaming.

Heres what it looked like without the coaming.

I had the lumberyard rip a few 2x6s edgewise to create the coaming. 

Of course, I epoxied and screwed it into place.

Later when we fiberglass the decks, we will create a curved filet at the inside corner and curve the fiberglass up over the coaming.

For some reason it strikes me as unusually handsome and boaty.

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Another New Boat Launched

My good friend Larry Cheek launched his new Sam Devlin designed Winter Wren today.  Beautiful job Larry!  Her name is "Nil Desperandum", which is advice from the Roman poet Horace to “Quit worrying".  Larry has a terrific blog here.  Nil Desperandum will be on display at the Port Townsend wooden boat festival in September.

Larry and I met when he was writing his book The Year of the Boat.  Back then, Larry and I were coincidentally both building Sam Devlins Zephyr design at the same time, a mere 30 miles apart when we crossed paths.  What are the odds of that? If you havent read Larrys book, I highly recommend it.

Congratulations on a magnificent job, Larry!  I wish you many, many years of happiness, joy, and adventure, and above all, No Worries, aboard your beautiful new craft.

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Hogfish Life the past few months new skiffs Stoner Boatworks update lots more

Will try and catch up on a bunch of things going on with the Hogfish, Rachel and I.

We have sailed as far south as Grenada and are now anchored in a bay off of place called Jolly Harbor in Antigua for the summer. I have a project to do which is redoing all the teak decking on Wild Bird in its cockpit and fore cabin deck. The rest of the 34 year old teak decking I will remove, fiberglass over the underlying deck and Awlgrip to yacht standards. Will show this project on a future blog post when finished.

I get a few emails a day asking advice about this and that from some of my old Flats Fishing boat owners and others that are doing their own designs and making new plugs. 

Following is a sample of whats been going on lately.

My story about finding treasure and the feel of greed was published last mont in the Caribbean Compass. You can read this paper online. Iam homered to be in there.

This is Capt. John Iversons skiff from Louisiana. This is the first flats boat I built in 1983 for Carley Causey.

Jon emailed me a couple of years ago asking for any kind of info I had on this skiff that he had just bought. I sent him all the building photos that I had. We have become friends.

Ten months ago he sent me an email saying that he was moving on to a new boat and would like to give me this skiff free and clear. He wanted it to go back to its creator. Wow, such a kind offer. I explained to him in declining his offer that I was not a flats fisherman so would have no real use for it. 

But would try and help him find a good home for it. Find him at  johniverson3210@yahoo.com

Its still in perfect shape. 

This is a picture that was posted on Facebook of the Stoners Version of the Spanish Wells Marina skiff design that I had put together 26 years ago. In my earlier post I explained my feelings about what this skiff could be when the Stoners Boat Company got their version done. Would it be an improvement or a quick splash to capitalize on the new Spanish Wells Boatworks revamping and improving of my old molds? It looks like a splash from here. Nothing new. But its sitting on its original lines nicely.

Another facebook picture of the hull coming out of the mold. When I look at pictures online and I can plainly see sloppy glass work on a mold I have to wonder whats the boat going to look like in the out of the way places. They have cut off the keel making a small flat pad here. Mark Stoner says its for fuel efficiency. I have seen a picture of the inside and all they have done that I can see is put in a square hatch in the foredeck. So far to me this is a splash. Waiting to see what they will be charging. Iam disappointed so far.

The other day in Grenada these guys were selling these fish along the carnage. They are very tasty when deep fried. This you can buy for cents.

 I just love the colors in this wooden skiff

Next along the carnage is this plywood go fast skiff. These boats really take a sea well and are very fast

Heres some more up in Carriacou on the beach. All bare painted plywood.

A two bow skiff down the beach. These are now only for sailing

My favorite plywood skiff in Carriacou 

Hers one with a bit of detail

Lots of wee as they say.

A new varnished one built in Carriacou

See how the Chines are above the water when at rest. Perfect. 

In the French islands they race these little sloops with big sprit sail mains and small jibs. When the mast is up the boat cannot stay upright so off you must go sailing, hiking out and bailing away.

Sweet transom

The fastest Carriacou sloop this year. Its for sale for $50,000.00 US with a full racing mast and sails.

This is Alexis Andrews Carriacou sloop " Genesis" with Alex at the stern. He has just sailed up from St. Barts to Falmouth in Antigua. Hes buying 1,800 lbs of extra lead from me for these sloops. They all carry inside ballest.

While at Woodstock Boatbuilders in Antigua the other day I got around to talking half models with its owner Andrew Robinson. He was going to order a custom one for hundreds of dollars to give as gift To the owner of the boat he had just rebuilt. I said I could make a bunch in a few hours and would trade for some of his companys tee shirts. 

This I did and he was very happy

Heres a plug that Dustin Bates is building for a personal flats skiff. He has been emailing me questions and sending photos of what hes up to asking advice. He wants to build three skiffs for himself and family.

This is going to be a very stable and dry skiff from the looks of it. Nice plug work too. Iam looking forward to seeing it upright.

Going through some old papers on board I found these old sales brochures from when I worked at Gold Coast Yachts in St. Croix 25 years ago. I worked building their wooden catamarans till they found out I could draw and had lots of design ideas. Next thing I know Iam in an air conditioned office doing conceptuall designs for their future wave piercing power cats. I drew and designed the boats to scale and they took these and gave them to their computer guy to print out.

 

Its nice to see a vision I had many years ago afloat in the Caribbean today. Actually they are all over the place now.

Local fish vendor in St. Pierre in Martinique selling Ballyhoo to eat. Beaks cut off and all gutted.

 Little red snappers for sale. The bucket was not full. Thats all they had

Some trigger fish for sale. Very small. They catch everything and sell it.

These tuna are 14" long! 

Why are all the fish vendors so grumpy looking. I get the women to smile when I say dont cut yourself when buying some tuna.

Rachel climbing up a hill we are trying to get over when hiking along the coast of Guadaloupe

At the top was this great stack of rocks placed by nature.

Hogfish sailing up to Diamond Rock off the south coast of Martinique. This island was commissioned by the British to be a Man O War ship. Wrecked havoc for quite awhile back in the day.

Gayle under a tree on a hike up from the sea side town of St. Pierre. We were going to hike along a 100 plus year old aqueduct that was built by slaves to provide water for sugarcane fields.

Once you started walking along the edge of the waterway you could look down the sheer face the mountain side to the valley below. The water was perfectly clear and clean and fast moving.

In Antigua now it is very dry and dusty, such a contrast to the other islands. Back in the slave days in Antigua they cut all the trees down to grow sugar cane so this helps to not draw in the moisture. Antigua is a very trashy dirty island, the worst place Ive seen. Rachel and I do lots of hiking here and no matter where we go in the bush its full of plastic trash.

There were lots of these big huge trees about

Rachel does not like heights as she says she feels like she wants to jump. All went well though as shes still on the ground with me.

On another hike in Martinique we walked along the west coast of the island on our sailing circumnavigation of Martinique.

With other boating friends we did a 11 mile hike out around the eastern most point of land in Martinique.

You can see our four sailboats at anchor below in this secure lagoon.

The view from the light house was great.

To finish off a nice big Palm tree at a rum estate. There were many about at this size.

We will sail back to Martinique after the Hurricane season in December with our daughter Lillian on her Christmas break to do more beach combing as its so good there. From there we start sailing back towards the Bahamas via Cuba and other islands.

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