Racing to Rio A perspective on Crossing the South Atlantic Ocean

I have crossed the South Atlantic under sail four times. Three times it was with full crew from Cape Town, South Africa, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the Cape to Rio Race. The other crossing was double-handed and going the other way. I will do it again in January but this time the build-up is proving to be very different.

First, I am not there to prepare the boat for the race myself. I have always been there to take charge of the preparations, with much able assistance from my crew and my family. This time I must rely on someone else to sort out any issues and to ready "Black Cat" for her 3,250 nautical mile voyage. That distance is nearly 3800 land miles and more than 50% longer than the famed Trans-Pac Race.

This voyage is small compared with a round-the-world voyage but it is, nevertheless, a major voyage and it is across waters that see very little traffic. Aside from commercial fishing ships and the boats that are racing, there are very few vessels crossing this ocean at any time. We have to be self-sufficient, to take care of whatever situation fate and the weather gods might send our way. We cant make a VHF call to the Coast Guard or US Towing to come fetch us. Each boat has to rely on its crew in an emergency and vice-versa; boat and crew are totally inter-dependent and both have to be fully prepared.  And, in the traditions of all seafarers, all boats are ready and willing to assist each other if needed.

I am very grateful for the work that is being done in Cape Town by Dave Immelman in preparing "Black Cat" in my absence. Dave will be my navigator for this race and was her skipper for the 1,800 mile Governors Cup Race from Simonstown to St Helena Island in December last year. He is the only one on the crew who lives in the Cape, so a big load has fallen on his shoulders ahead of this race. The Cat is now 18 years old and Dave has been charged with upgrading anything that needed upgrading, from structure through to finishes, rig, systems, equipment and sails. In many respects the St Helena Race served as a good shake-down to highlight any issues that have developed in the years since I handed her over to her current owner, Adrian Pearson.  I look forward to test-sailing her on Table Bay with all the new goodies that she has gained since I last sailed on her.

Racing under spinnaker into inky darkness.
Sean Collins & Adrian Pearson in the cockpit.

 The other difference is that for previous races I lived in Cape Town and  this time I live in USA. In Cape Town I was always surrounded by people from the sailing community. Cape Town is a beautiful place to sail, one of the best in the world. It can also be one of the toughest places in the world to sail, with sometimes violent weather and extremely testing seas. In that environment the fact that I was soon to cross an ocean on a small boat was of passing interesting but not considered to be too much out of the ordinary. After all, if you can sail in Cape Town you can sail anywhere, so what could be special about an ocean crossing?

This time it is very different. My neighbours know that I design boats for a living. They have not seen the big boats that I have built, only the little Paper Jet that took shape in their neighbourhood and drags around faithfully behind my minivan when I am going sailing. They have not seen the boisterous to wild conditions in which so much of the Cape Town racing happens. Here I am a bit of an oddity because I just dont fit into the mould. They are very supportive of what I am doing but dont really comprehend it; the who, where, what and how of sailing across an ocean. I must admit that I do enjoy explaining to them what I will be doing, where we will sail, the beauty of Cape Town and Rio, the good and bad experiences of sailing a small boat across thousands of miles of open water, through good weather and bad and the real or imagined dangers. In their view I fit in somewhere between eccentric and totally crazy, leaning mostly toward the crazy end of the scale. They worry mostly that it is a very dangerous thing to do.

The truth of a voyage is really somewhere between how it is viewed by my friends in Cape Town and those here in Virginia Beach. In each of the races that I have sailed we have had to cope with at least one big storm and another one or two smaller ones. Yes, it is dangerous; but we do what we can to reduce the danger. As far as I can recall, only one person has died during the Cape to Rio Race in the 42 year history of the event. Thousands have participated, two boats have sunk on the race, two have sunk on the return voyage and only one person has died. That was from a heart attack that would likely have happened on land anyway.

Gavin Muller repairing sails during the 1996 race.

We all take precautions because it is dangerous to be on a small boat way out of sight of land. The boats are all fully equipped with a wide range of safety equipment, which has to be maintained according to mandated schedules. All boats are scrutinied before being allowed to start. All boats have to prove a high level of experience and/or certification among the crew before they are accepted. That experience and certification is for ocean experience, navigational and seamanship skills and the ability to take care of medical emergencies with the very comprehensive medical kit that we carry with us.

Additional to those documented requirements, every skipper sets his/her own standards for behavior on their particular boat. I cant vouch for other skippers but on "Black Cat" we go into safety mode in bad weather and from dusk to dawn, when no person is allowed on deck without first putting on their safety harness and clipping onto one of the many secure points on deck before exiting the interior of the boat. Along with this, a clear head is always required, 24/7, so there is no drinking of alcohol except for one optional drink at happy hour each day. There will be plenty of time to imbibe in Brazil.

An ocean crossing like this does not need to be dreaded but neither is it a cakewalk. We need exciting activities in our lives to build the memories that we cherish. They help to remind us that we are alive and have a purpose in our lives, they give us the material with which to tell the stories that will entertain our friends and grandchildren in the autumn years to come. If we dont reach those autumn years we still come out ahead because we have had a lot of fun and excitement along the way.

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How to Make a Displacement Hull Plane

The Bartender line of fishing boats has a reputation as a superlative surf boat. The Coast Guard has used them as rescue vessels. As doryman everywhere know, a good surf boat is double-ended and is thus less likely than a square transomed boat to broach on a following wave.

Unfortunately the double-ended hull will not plane under normal, non-surfing conditions, no matter how much power they produce. So, George Calkins designed a spray skirt for his power dories to provide more lift at the stern.

The nineteen foot Bartender in the lean-to out in the boatyard has never been outfitted with a spray skirt, as far as I can tell, but it has one now. Frank, the current owner has been frustrated that this boat tops out at 10 miles-per-hour.

 
Now, that would be just fine with me. Mentioning this to Frank made him laugh.

If this were my boat, Id have no more than a ten horsepower motor on her and be happy just puttering around. The hull drives easily and this could be a very economical package.

The boat has a 40 horsepower motor however, and a rated speed of 25 - 30 mph, which is what we are trying to achieve. The bottom had a keel hog from sitting on a poorly designed, dilapidated trailer which probably contributed to its reduced performance. Ive stressed as much of the hog out as I could, reinforced some old, tired keelson framing and re-welded the offending trailer. All in a days work for a shipwright. The spray skirt was a challenge - the hull shape aft has such a radical camber that the face of the skirt is a helix. I laminated Oregon white oak using polyurethane glue and stainless screws. Didnt have to steam bend anything, but very near.

Frank will be camping aboard this boat at the upcoming Sucia Rendezvous so Ill be able to see first hand how all this works out.

Hope you all had a better solstice than I did. You can see what I was doing on the longest day of the year.

The spray skirt meets the chine at the stern, sweeps up past the waterline about half-way, then on to touch the bow in a fair curve.

Need to clean and polish that bronze half-round for a finishing touch.....








I also prepared some salmon for the Rendezvous. John St Clair is known locally as the Salmonator. He is a prolific fish killer. (many people find it confusing that I spend so much time on the water but dont fish. With friends like the Salmonator, why should I?). Recently he gave me a 20 pound salmon that had been in the freezer for awhile. The best thing to do with a fish thats a bit past its prime is smoke it. I dont have a smoker, so I slow cooked my fish. After marinating it in a brine and sugar mixture for 24 hours, it was spiced with garlic, onion, tariyaki and sesame seeds. It was then cooked at 170 degrees F, for six hours. Dessicated fish is not photogenic, so I will forgo any pictures. Take my word for it. Its delicious!

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Welcome to 2015

Whether 2014 was a good year or a bad one for you, it is now disappearing in the rear view mirror. It is time to take on 2015 and we are ready for it. Bring it on. Happy New Year to all.

We are settling into our new home and office. The number of cardboard boxes is diminishing as we find homes for things in closets and for pictures on the walls. Eventually I will have the garage organised enough that I will be able to get back to working on projects.

The office has been the most challenging. Somehow networks have a way of being disobedient when the time comes to reconnect everything after being totally dismantled. Like a happy family, the computers and printers are now all talking to each other again.

As part of this move I have phased out our trusty EnCAD CADjet 2 plotter that moved with us from South Africa 11 years ago. We still have the HP 750c Plus that joined the business 8 or 9 years ago and have added an HP 1055cm Plus plotter with automatic roll feeder. This is all intended to turbocharge our drawing printing capacity to better cope with the seasonal peaks of orders.

This is a temporary home for a year or two, a place of transition until we buy a more permanent new spot for ourselves. Time will tell where and when that will be.

All of our contact details remain unchanged. The mailing address, telephone, fax and email are all as before.

We are up and running again, ready for whenever you want to start your new boatbuilding project.

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St Ayles Skiff World Championships – July 8th to 14th 2013

Doryman hopes to take a trip to Scotland in 2013 to enjoy the festivities at the first St. Ayles Skiff World Championships. Hope you can come along!

Heres the invite that came in the mail today:

"The Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club is delighted to announce that Ullapool has been selected by the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association as the venue for the first World Championship for Coastal Rowing using the St Ayles Skiff. With the astonishing growth of St Ayles Skiff building and rowing by communities internationally the time is right to run a Skiffie Worlds to give an opportunity for Rowers from across the Globe to meet in friendly competition."

"Ullapool, on the banks of Loch Broom, a large sheltered sea Loch in the Northwest of Scotland, is an ideal location to host such an event. With an existing infrastructure developed to cater for the needs of visitors and great community experience in running large cultural events SkiifieWorlds will be well within the capacity of the village."

"Ullapool Coastal Rowing Club together with their partner organisations, the Loch Broom Sailing Club, Coigach Community Rowing and the Ullapool Harbour Trustees look forward to welcoming visiting crews to our magnificent waters. A full programme of maritime and landbased activities and entertainment is planned culminating with the Prizegiving followed by a boisterous Ceilidh Dance on Saturday 13th, 2013."



Its hard to pass up an invitation like that. Ive been promised that there will be "loaner" boats available for international guests who cant bring their own Skiffs.

Let the races begin!

Photo courtesy of Chris Perkins.

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How to build an adjustable tiller lock for a couple bucks

Its that time of year again.  Spring Tweak time!  This years Spring Tweak is a DIY tiller lock.

This tiller lock is fully adjustable, easy to make, unobtrusive, easily removed and set up, and only costs a few bucks to make.  Ill show you how to make one.

Tiller Locks:

When it comes to tiller locking devices, theres certainly no shortage of them.  Do a Google search for "tiller tamer", or "tiller lock" or something similar, and before you know it youll have spent your entire day looking at a bewildering assortment of different types, both commercially available and home made.  Dont ask me how I know that.

Tiller locks generally fall into four main categories.

First, youve got your on-off lever action type, like this TillerClutch for example.  These usually have a lever mounted towards the front of the tiller that allows you to alternate between locking the tiller in place, or allowing it to move freely.  Its always locked or unlocked, theres no in-between. 

Then theres the Solid Brace type.  These consist of an adjustable rod that goes from the tiller to a box usually mounted on the seat back.  Theyre designed to be rugged.  The rod doubles as a tiller extender and can be easily detached to unlock the tiller.  The rods length can be adjusted as needed.

Next, theres the Friction Knob type, like the ever popular Tiller Tamer.  Here, a knob is used to adjust the amount of friction anywhere from very loose to a full lock.






Also using adjustable friction technology are a variety  of  DIY Shock Cord, Rope and Bungee types.  These are usually home-made and can range from a single piece of rope stretched between two cleats, to devices constructed from bungee cords, fairleads, camcleats, blocks, hooks, and various other items.


Of course they all have their pros and cons.  So how do you decide which one to buy or build?

What makes a good tiller lock (in my opinion):

• Adjustability means flexability.  I favor the devices that allow the friction to be adjusted from completely free tiller movement all the way up to a full lock.  Dialing in just enough friction to hold the tiller in place still allows an occasional nudge to adjust the boats course.
• Dont get in the way.  Most devices have ropes that lead from the front of the tiller to the sides of the boat that block access to outboard motors, block seats, and so on.  This can be a major drawback on a boat with limited space to begin with.
• Quickly disabled and enabled.  I want to be able to quickly and easily disable or remove the device when Im done using it, or in case of an emergency.
• A DIY solution, inexpensive and easily constructed from readily available parts.
• Strong, reliable, and should not be unattractive.

How my tiller lock works:

My tiller lock is a Friction Knob type.  Tightening the knob pulls up on an eye-bolt, pinching a line against a strip of leather with increasing friction. The amount of friction is fully adjustable from very loose to a full lock.  The friction between the rope and leather is smooth, consistant, and the leather will not wear out any time soon. It is not necessary to locate the tiller lock near the front of the tiller on a boat the size of mine, or on any boat with a well balanced helm.  I located mine slightly forward of my aft coaming and ran the line almost straight across. There, the line is not blocking my way at all but still functions perfectly, so long as I keep the line free of slack. Two jam cleats on my coaming allow me to easily tension the line tightly.  I can instantly remove the device by pulling the line off the jam cleats. A leather washer under the knob protects the tiller from damage and its friction prevents the knob from turning on its own.

Materials needed:

To make my tiller lock youll need a stainless steel eye-bolt and a few other small items that you can probably find lying around the house or garage.  The eye-bolt I used is a Stanley V2161 that I got from Lowes for $1.28.  Youll also need a small scrap of leather, a couple stainless steel screws, a short piece of rope, and a couple small scraps of wood.  You may also need to purchase a couple small jam cleats.  The knob can be made from a scrap of wood by tapping a threaded hole in it or using a threaded insert, or you can buy a threaded plastic knob at a hardware store for $2.60 like I did.  Or simply use a stainless steel wingnut.

Building the tiller lock:

The lock is very simple and building it should be quite self-explanitory.  Here is a cutaway diagram of how it goes together:

Youll need to drill a 1/4" hole through your tiller for the eye-bolt.

Make the bottom piece from a scrap of wood measuring 2-1/2" long by 1" high by 3/4" thick.  I used white oak.  Cut a 1/4" slot completely through it, long enough for the eye-bolt to fit through, and counterbore a couple of screw holes in it. Round off the corners.

Cut a strip of leather as wide as the inside diameter of the eye-bolt and long enough to wrap around the wooden piece.  Leather from an old belt works fine.  Insert the eye-bolt, then add the leather strip, holding it in place with glue or a couple brass tacks. Make a leather washer for under the knob. Drill the hole in the leather washer oversized so the eye-bolt can freely move up and down through it.

Attach to your tiller, kick back and relax!

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Cape to Rio Race 2014

I have done it 3 times before and I am soon going to do it again. Sail in the Cape to Rio Race, that is. I have crossed the South Atlantic 4 times, so this will be my 5th crossing.

In 1993 I raced on the Shearwater 39 "Ukelele Lady" (yes, I know that ukulele is spelt incorrectly but the guy who carved the name board was a bad speller) as sailing master and navigator. The boat was owned by my friend Nick Taylor, entertainer and TV personality.

In 1996 I sailed on the Didi 38 "Black Cat", as skipper and co-owner. Between the 1993 and 1996 races I had designed and built the new boat for the race. After Rio, we cruised her to the beautiful Bay of Islands SW of Rio before I raced her back to Cape Town, double-handed with Jay Barnes, in the South Atlantic Challenge.

Built in my garden in Hout Bay, here we are turning the hull.

 In 2000 I sailed on "Black Cat" again, as skipper. By then my co-owner, Adrian Pearson, had bought my share and was sole owner. Clive Dick and Adrian sailed her back to Cape Town.

Now "Black Cat" is 18 years old and has many thousands of ocean and coastal miles under her keel. We are about to head out onto the South Atlantic Ocean again, in the 2014 Cape to Rio Race. We have assembled the same crew as in 1996 with the exception of the navigator. My good friend Brian Cole was navigator in 1996 but is now getting on in years, so we have a younger man in his place.

Launch day in 1995.

  I am skipper and you all know me. No more info needed.

Adrian Pearson is owner and has sailed about as many miles  on "Black Cat" as I have. He does not skipper, preferring to be one of the crew.

Sean Collins sailed many miles with me on my CW975 "Concept Won", racing in Cape of Good Hope waters. He was with me for many double-handed events as well.

Gavin Muller was the "baby" of our 1996 crew, having graduated from high school the month before the start of the race. Now, 18 years later, his age has doubled but he will still be the youngest on the 2014 crew.

Dave Immelman is the new member, sailing as navigator. Dave has done extensive international offshore and ocean racing and is in charge of the major refit of "Black Cat", which is currently in progress.

Flying out of Table Bay after the start of the 1996 race.

 "Black Cat" has gone through big changes since I last saw her. She has been prettied up on the inside with hardwood trims and teak/holly cabin soles. Some comfort items added, like hot and cold pressure water system, separate fridge and freezer and inside shower. She also has a lot more in electronics, like radar, chart plotter and sailing computer, with instrument repeaters and dual compasses in the cockpit. Rig and deck hardware are also seeing upgrades to carry the increased shock loadings of a new suit of tougher hi-tech sails. I am looking forward to sailing on her with all the new toys and go-fast goodies.

She will go back into the water when this work has been completed, then Dave Immelman will do extensive sea trials to test her thoroughly before I arrive in December to give her my own check-over.

Relaxing in the Bay of Islands, Brazil.

For anyone interested, you will be able to track our progress on the Cape to Rio Race website and we will have a blog for "Black Cat" to pass on stories from onboard.

And, if anyone has an interest in sponsoring "Black Cat" in this event, please contact me to discuss what we can do for each other.

To view my boat designs, please go to http://dixdesign.com

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Our Cape to Rio Race Wrap up

First off I want to say thank you to all friends, family and supporters for all of the good wishes that have poured in following our experiences in the Cape to Rio Race the past few days. The five crew of "Black Cat" are all very grateful for the assistance received. As is always the case, stories have varied depending on the source and they have no doubt expanded with the telling and retelling. I will tell it from the very personal point of view of being right there in the middle of the action.

The weather briefing two days before the race start told us there there was bad weather expected and their advice was to sail due west as fast as possible to get through the system to the high that would follow. That would give us SW winds that would turn S then SE. With my navigator, Dave (Wavy) Immelman, we decided to follow that advice as the most logical route. The weatherman warned about being in the SW quadrant of the storm that would follow a day or two later.

The race got off to a good start in light breezes, the course taking us around the perimeter of Table Bay. This was a good indicator for us of our chances of placing well in the race because we were very quick, and staying in the lead group of 4 smaller boats trailing the 3 big guns that led the fleet. Our group opened up a large gap from the others behind us.

We sailed through the first night in gradually strengthening wind that gave squalls of 20-25 knots. Around daybreak the squalls started to intensify and broke through 30 knots with 18-20 knots between them. Feeling a bit over-powered in the squalls we were reefing the mainsail when a squall of somewhat over 40 knots hit us. We were now entering the SW winds behind the front, so I changed from our westerly course to a NW heading, taking pressure off the sails. Despite that, the wind over the deck increased, with gusts of over 50 knots that shredded our new carbon jib, leaving us under main only.

While changing from the #1 jib to the smaller #3, we were running before and gaining speed rapidly. Wavy was standing on the foredeck at the forestay, hauling down the tatters of the jib when we took off down a wave, accelerating to 22 knots. The waves were very short and steep and we ran straight into the back of the next wave, washing Wavy aft against the shrouds, spraining his ankle and inflating his automatic life-jacket. At the same time the tiller went sloppy in my hands. Although "Black Cat" was running fast and straight down the wave she was doing it on her own, we had no steering.

We dropped all sail and elected to sit out the worsening conditions before setting up a jury rudder to take us back to Cape Town. "Black Cat" was comfortable and in no danger. While we waited we saw the German entry "Iskareen" sail past from behind. We thought that this very fast boat was ahead of us so it came as a surprise to see them come past from well astern.

The wind and sea moderated quite quickly from that first storm and we put our minds to making a jury rudder from lazarette floor boards. Sean Collins went over onto the sugar-scoop to screw and strap it to the stub of the rudder that remained below the pintels. It worked reasonably but we treated it gingerly for fear of breaking it. We motored on a heading for Cape Town but as the day progressed the conditions slowly deteriorated as a second storm started to move in. I saw that we were not going to lay Cape Town so elected to rather head for the closer and easier Saldanha Bay.

As evening approached this storm grew progressively more violent. We were in the SW quadrant of the storm about which the weatherman had warned us. We had no desire to be in that position at that time but we had no choice in the matter. Fate had placed us there and we could only do our best to cope with the situation as it developed.

Around dusk there was a massive bang, a noise that sounded like the boat being ripped apart. Sean had shouted a warning from the cockpit that I cant repeat in present company but none of us heard it. Suddenly we were upside down and the cabin was filled with flying bodies and objects that were loose in the cabin and also those that were inside closed and latched lockers. I had been sleeping on the starboard saloon settee and had only a few seconds earlier stood up to walk aft to the cockpit. I was still in the saloon and was hit on my face and top of my head by unidentified flying debris, leaving me with minor cuts and a black eye.

The noise of this impact was so great and our up-turned position so alarming that I thought that the keel had come off. I was on the cabin roof and looked up at the bilge, all cabin soles having fallen out. I saw no gaping hole as I expected but shouted "Everybody out!!", still thinking that we had no keel. This all happened in a few seconds, then suddenly she was upright again and I knew that we still had a keel. We were left with an awful mess of food packages, cabin sole panels, tumblers, containers and anything else that managed to find its way out of its allotted place. And there was water everywhere. There had been some in the bilge but a lot more had come in through the companion hatch and a hole that we had no yet identified.

With no instruction from anyone this very capable crew automatically set about sorting out the chaos, first picking up anything that could block the bilge pumps before starting to pump out the water. The day fridge, which had been bolted into the saloon table, had relocated itself to the settee on which I had been lying only 30 seconds earlier. Three fire extinguishers, mounted in brackets from which they are removed vertically, all fell out when we were inverted and flew across to the starboard side of the cabin. Only two of the five onboard were in steel straps with locking mechanisms that held them firmly in place, the other three fell out and became lethal missiles.

Next we discovered what the hole was that had appeared in the deck. During the inversion process the tail of the mainsheet went over the side and attached itself to the propeller and wound itself up to the point that it stopped the diesel motor. It had so much tension in it that the force downward on the upper guardrail wire punched the nearest stanchion through the 12mm plywood deck. That left a hole about 75mm diameter into the locker below, where my clothes were. From there the water spread itself all over the starboard aft cabin, soaking everything that Wavy and I had in that cabin. That was all of our clothes, bedding, camera bags etc.

Of more consequence, the volume of water that came into the boat spread itself over the chart table, the lid of which had ripped right off, and into the electrical panel and electronics. The two satellite phones and main VHF radio were drowned, leaving us with only a hand-held VHF of limited range with which to communicate. Smelling smoke, Wavy opened the electrical panel to see smoke coming out but it didnt develop into a fire.

Time stands still in these situations. I have no idea how long it took us to clean up the boat but she was back to a semblance of ship-shape before too long. The hole in the deck was plugged as well as possible with some muti that we had brought onboard the day before the race start.

In the midst of all this Sean came down from the cockpit and described what had happened. From inside the boat we had no idea, it was just massive noise and upside-downness.

Sean, a surfer like me, says that he suddenly felt the same feeling as when caught inside the impact zone of a big surf break, where you have no way of escaping the beating that is about to be dealt to you and you just have to take it on the head and cope with it. He did not see the wave coming but became aware of it as it loomed over the boat. It was very large and broke as a hollow tubing wave completely enveloping "Black Cat". She rose up the face of the wave, rotating as she rose until she was hanging from the roof of the tube. Then she fell or was thrown down the face of the wave with the mast going in first. The crash that I heard inside the boat must have been the cabin and deck hitting the water. While this was happening I also looked into the cockpit for Sean and he was hanging from a winch or whatever he had been able to grab as the wave reared up. I required that all crew be hooked on with safety harnesses before going on deck but Sean was hanging on so tight that his harness had no work to do.

This wave was much bigger and more violent than any others we had felt or seen. If that one could clobber us there may also be others, so we streamed warps from the bow and deployed the storm jib as a sea anchor to try to hold her bow-on to the waves. These did not seem to help much because the underwater current seemed to be pretty much the same speed as our drift. We didnt get her to lie more than about 20-25 degrees from broadside-on to the waves but it seemed to be enough to ease the motion a bit and cause other breaking waves to roll past the port quarter instead of hitting us amidships.

The worsening storm and loss of major communications prompted us to ask Cape Town Radio to put out a Pan-Pan message on our behalf to warn of our location in the shipping lane and to ask for the NSRI (National Sea Rescue Institute) to be called to our assistance. We advised that we were in no immediate danger but would appreciate assistance when it could be provided. We switched on the EPIRB to give a signal for rescue services to home in on. We had AIS onboard but it had flooded along with the other instruments at the nav table.

Initially the assistance came in the form of the fishing vessel "Miriam Makeba" heading our way. When they were still a few miles away the navy frigate SAS Isandlwana took over control of the widespread rescue efforts and released the fishing vessel to continue fishing. As the frigate approached in the rain they asked us to send up a flare, then another, to help them to locate us. Once they had located us we confirmed that we were in no immediate danger and they headed off to take care of people and boats that were in much more serious situations.

In the morning conditions again subsided. Wavy went over the side in his diving gear to free the mainsheet from the prop, which allowed us to restart the motor. At the same time he swam the length of the underbody to check for damage or other problems. A new and improved version of the jury rudder was fabricated from more plywood cannibalised from the lazarette and we continued on our journey toward Saldanha Bay at 4-5 knots under our own power. We were well set to reach there during the night.

Early afternoon the NSRI Rescue 3 arrived from Cape Town. They offered us the choice of continuing under our own steam to Saldanha Bay or accepting their tow back to Cape Town. Proceeding to Saldanha Bay presented logistical problems for crew and boat, so we took the tow and headed for Cape Town at 10 knots.

Manoeuvring into the RCYC basin proved to be more difficult than anticipated because the jury rudder boards added to the starboard side of the rudder severely limited rudder movement in that direction. Add a pomping SE gale and we sorely needed the welcoming hands on the dock to catch us as we came in at rather high speed and with negligible control.

Now "Black Cat" is safely back in port but she has some more patching to be done to her. This is for the hole in the deck from the stanchion and for the spot where her bow kissed the marina rather harder than necessary on our return.

My big question out of all of this was "Why did the rudder break?". It had a solid Iroko spine nearly 100mm thick and 150mm wide, extending top to bottom, with plywood fairing to leading and trailing edges. That is a massive piece of timber that can easily support a large car and really should not have been broken by a 22 knot surf. The answer came from the owner, Adrian Pearson. He told me that when "Black Cat" was squeezed between the steel RCYC marinas a few weeks ago when the mooring chains broke, it was not only the hull and keel that were damaged. He said that the rudder was also "graunched". If that is so, it may have started a fracture of the rudder spine that culminated in the blade shearing off at high speed.

We are all very disappointed that our race had to end this way. We were going so well and must have been in with a reasonable chance for a top result. Unfortunately, we will now never know. We are just glad to be back on land safely and are very grateful to NSRI and the crew of Rescue 3 for their part in it, as well as the "Miriam Makeba" and SAS Isandlwana.

I also want to thank the crew of "Black Cat" for being such great and capable shipmates, always ready to do the right thing and with a smile.

Adrian Pearson (owner)
Dave (Wavy) Immelman (Navigator)
Sean (Buttercup) Collins
Gavin (Doris) Muller

And a big thank you must also go to our  Didi 38 "Black Cat". She took a hammering on our behalf and came through with negligible structural damage.

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Ian Scott Devlin is one of several guys that I have met over the Internet this past year that are interested in ultra shallow draft fishing skiffs that could be used for a new emerging market and personal outdoor experience.

Ian and I have been talking back and forth this past year about his vison quest to find the perfect boat to fit his future fishing, guiding lifestyle. Ian is a guide up north that fishes, bird watches and just basically loves being in the out doors treating it with respect. I can see this from his posts online. I can also tell he is very detail oriented in his photos of wildlife and his fly tying and fishing rod design work.

Ive taken on his search as a challenge on my own to see if his dream boat could really exist without too many compromises. Can he have it all? Does it exist now out there in the market place. I feel I have a pretty good grasp of the challenges in designing a boat to fit his needs as I have spent the last 44 years climbing in and out of and operating very small light weight skiffs on a daily basis in all sea conditions from crossing the Gulf Stream in a 123" skiff, to carrying my wife and new born daughters on adventures through out the Caribbean . I also have as most of you know by now built with my own hands many small skiffs and dinghies both for myself on a budget and for others to pay for my future adventures. I will be comparing and discussing my design, thought process against the current boat market but will only provide drawings to explain what I see, think is happening or how it could perform against what I see out there today. I am not out to single out boat builders or boats so will not use photographs. All boats work, just some might work a bit better if the details have been thought through.

In this design I have put the amateur home builder in mind from the start. This skiff can be built by anyone that has a few tools, a dry shop or space and has the desire to create his own skiff at a fraction of the cost of a store bought one.  

I asked Ian a while back to send me his wish list. This he did right away. I have been sketching and thinking it over these past few months as I sail down the island chain here in the Antilles on my winter work break. I will be redoing a teak deck on a friends 44 sailboat in Antigua starting in May to pay for next years time off sailing to Panama.

I will start by showing you his list and then I will explain to you the hows and whys of what I feel can work, what  I think wont, with my design as a comparison to what now exists in the market. What I am doing here is what all builders-salesmen today should be explaining to you the buying public how and why their boat is the one to buy. Its pretty simple, not one skiff can fill the needs of everybody.

Ians vison wish list in the order I received it;

-   Silent hull, even in 12" chop.

-   Very dry ride, as smooth as can be for an ultra draft hull.

-   20 long ( ample room for three people ).

-   To pole effortless and row super easy, track straight, but turn pivot easily.

-   Weigh no more than 250 lbs.

-   High freeboard; 18"-20"

-   Self bailing hull , inside the cockpit to be knee deep.

-   Minimal layout

-   5-6 casting decks, lots of cockpit room.

-   4"-5" draft with 800 lbs in the finished boat, ( thats people, engine, gas, tackle).

-   Operates with no more than a 30 hp outboard tiller engine, and portable 6 gal. Gas tank.

-   Able to be launched in remote areas / can be picked up by two people when engine is removed.

-   Wants to row and pole it in- no trolling motor zones.

-   Flush oar mounts that can be flip up and make no noise

-   Glass bottom viewing port.

-   Seating on either a coffin box, cooler, or chars.

-   Massive dry storage under both fore and aft decks.

-   Micro skiff performance that offers more room for anglers.

-   Boat to cost under $15,000.00 US to build.

Im a list guy. I like to have all the details up front. This is a good start. Ive built one off custom boats for clients that gave me pages of details that they wanted to see in their vision. When I start on my design I then have a good idea of what they are looking for with me being the guy that they would trust to say this can work ,this wont, all the rest I can make happen.

I will go down the list and go over each request one at a time and explain my thoughts .Then I will present my proposed design and explain my ideas.

-   Silent hull, even in 12" of chop.

To get a quiet hull most designers and people now know you cannot have any Chines or hard corners coming out of the water or anywhere near it. These pockets and hard spots even if slightly rounded will cause some noise or pressure waves that can spook fish that are used to being harassed all the time.

If polling in a 12" chop in a long lean lightweight skiff with 2 sports aboard plus you in wind, you will most likely be poling into it or crabbing your way across a flat. If your upper Chines are high enough you will not make any noise. But in a long low light weight skiff to get any use out of an upper chine or sheer spray rail it cannot be too high. In my design I have drawn in a rounded stern to make the boat as quiet as possible when poling, drifting or rowing down wind. It will be interesting if this rounded stern detail will catch on in other designs.

Most all skiffs out there now look to be pretty quiet hulls. Lots look to be really wet in a chop though when under power.

-   Very dry ride, as smooth as can be for an ultra shallow draft hull.

The first thing you have going for yourself in this boat type is its going to be long and narrow. This makes it ride better right off. Where I make my departure from all the present skiffs on the market is the way they all treat the last 7-8 of their in the water bows. All are designed with a straight bottom keel, that is their centerline , with the bow area that is coming out of the water as an after thought. In watching these skiffs perform over half of the skiffs bottoms are out of the water when planing in flat water. This is fine till you get a bit of chop. Now you can trim the bow down with trim tabs or just by re-trimming the outboards angle. What happens then is you have a very long hull that in order to make the bow work you will have to submerge the entire bottom hull length to get the bow down to get to what ever vee is there. In this process if you have no vee then you will pound away with the spray coming over the side. Of course the real idea behind most of these skiffs is to run and fish in very protected waters. To cross deeper bays in choppy conditions say in a cold front, you can always run straight into the wind to get to the other side and then in protected waters make your way to your next poling spot.

To make my 20 skiff ride as dry as can be, ( you must help the skiff stay dry by being creative in crossing expanses of deeper water) I have designed in rocker into the bottom keel line of my hull. This will help greatly in poling, rowing and maneuvering this skiff in choppy water crossings, say up to 

2-1/2.The rocker lets the water flow past at slow speeds with minimal drag as compared to a straight keel bottom. No transom drag. The rocker facilitates turning greatly. The rocker lets the bow ride up in big seas but the main part of the boat is still in the water without the bow half rising out of the water. Less windage when running. This bow as drawn has ample buoyancy and sheer height forward , the others dont as they are designed as protected water boats only. When trimming this bow down the vee that is in the hull forward of amidships is enough to give a good ride in a 2-1/2 choppy sea if going head into it. Going off on a beam sea all boats are going to be wet except in this one the spray will find the driver but those forwards should be dry.

Ian has not specified boats speeds in flat water, with 1-2 more people in the boat and what to expect in rough conditions. From experience in my past HBBWs skiff designs, being in and out of my 130 lb. dinghy on a daily basis and having been out in a variety of other skiff shapes and designs I will say that my design with a 25 hp short shaft two stroke outboard this skiff should ,with one man aboard do close to 30 mph in flat water. In rough water, say traveling in a 2-1/2 chop with the swells that will go with it and the boat- engine trimmed properly you will be able to go along at about 18 mph across most any bay or open water.

With two more people aboard and all your stuff aboard youll be looking at a top speed of 25 mph or so in flat water and a bit less depending on the sea conditions. This design if driven within a moderate speed frame should be very comfortable in rough water with the spray being caught amidships forward. Catching spray amidships aft is very hard on any small skiff when traveling in a beam sea and wind. You just cannot go fast enough to evade it if its windy out. So the guide or helmsmen gets some spray. Standing up with a tiller extension and a bar to steady you only your midsection down will get wet.

Trim the engine down and the bow in my skiff will take all the pounding when going into a head sea. This being a light uncored hull it will be very taught and a bit flexible in the sides as you fly along letting the bow take all the abuse. In the current skiff market lots of the skiffs do not have well developed bows for this kind of sea-chop state. They are too flat forward. They will be very quiet with their soft rounded bows but are limited to very protected waters. 

I have designed a very easy to build strip planked hull that you can make a single skin fiberglass hull off of. You then add on a purpose built spray rail. You can stick with the strip planked hull which will weigh more or you can use this to make other hulls from and then finish the plug hull and use-sell last.

-   20 long ( ample room for three people )

Being 20 long you can get the clients up forward a bit where the ride will be dryer. The next problem is when you get into some chop the clients will feel it first. Trim down with not good bow spray catching designs then its oilskins time. Being a narrow boat it will have the feeling of room but its really just a long stretched out dinghy. The majority of these skiffs built today have side decks . This adds lots of weight to a boat that wants to be ultra lite. I have drawn in a nice wide sheer cap rail that will help as the last defense in spray, makes a good rub rail that is very strong and light and will feel good to sit on. Not everyone on one side though at once! I have drawn in the lightest deck platforms that I know will work. They are very strong but the compromise in saving weight here is they can be dented by a heavy anchor or rough usage. Mine in my skiffs have some dents from handling my 75 lb. anchors in them but they are still going strong after 22 years. These can be built on a sheet of Formica plywood making very detailed hatch channel plugs-& forms out of wood to glass over to come up with your flush hatch. Will look like the best but can be built by anyone very easily.

-   To pole effortlessly, row well, tracks straight, but turns / pivots easily 

 Not asking much here Ian are you? By the sheer length of these skiffs and they being narrow and relatively light in weight as opposed to what the other more traditional flats skiff weigh they all should pole well. Some that I see have tried to make them into long lean machines with everything on board so will be the heaviest. Nothing like a simple stripped out skiff to muck about in though. All should pole well. Spinning should not be a problem as theres nothing below the waterline. They all should track straight as the skiff will have a long lean waterline.  If the bow has too much flotation then it could blow off if too much weight in the stern . You must make the boat float level .

I have drawn in a chine drop in pocket in the aft section of my skiffs bottom to act as mini keels and to redirect the aft spray. I have also drawn in two keel fins to stop any sliding and make this skiff pole straight. When pivoting I feel they will not hinder a turn as they are small in lateral plane, but will help greatly In poling and running at speed. I have windsurfed, paddle boarded and surfed enough to see how a little a skeg can help. In poling in 5" of water they will drag a bit but will be like a knife in the mud. I have drawn in a good bit of rocker into the bottom fore and aft in this skiff. This will make it rowable. Having a straight flat bottom will cause too much back eddy drag. Ive rowed a ton in my life and trust me this is the only way to go. I control the boat trim in running by using a simple fin bolted onto the cavitation plate on the out board. I started using these when I saw the first DOLPHIN plates being used. They were designed to be off to the side of the Cavitation plates. Silly wasting all that thrust going out aft . I made mine to hang over the rear of the engine to use that thrust and catch it and for 30 plus years have called it my unpatented WHALES  TAIL. You just have to stop the boat, lift the engine and change the engine angle with its rear pin. Takes 30 seconds. No need for trim tabs, batteries. Oh! But youll say I need all that extra stuff to perform at my peak at all times.

I say if you want a simple light weight skiff then slow down, chill out and when you are adjusting the engine trim for that romp across the bay tell your clients a quick tale or joke.

-   Weigh no more than 250 lbs.

Heres a hard one. A boat- skiff this size could-can weigh just barley in at the 250 lb. mark and still be a long lasting strong boat. But it will have to be ultra simple and cared for and handled properly to last.

I would suggest going out and weighing your present skiff and others. Strip the engines off and try and lift a couple of these skiffs. Some are light for sure. But would they fit into Ians criteria?

Heres how I would build this skiff to make this target weight and make it affordable.

I would find at least three other people that would want one of these skiffs that could afford its price to go in on putting up the $ to get the hull plug built. I would find a shop that works in one off projects or one of you has the time and inclination to make the first hull.

I would then have them or you build the hull that Ive drawn in strip plank cedar or foam. What I have drawn is very simple to build in strip plank. Glass over and lightly fair. I would then vacuum bag or just carefully layup over this waxed plug a Carbon fiber layup as designed in epoxy or vinylester. The transom would be cored in later. This skiff will be an uncored solid carbon and e-glass skin hull with only cored decks, hatches and bulkheads. The spray rail will be made up of cored glass. The sheer rail and rub rail will be glassed over PVC pipe as shown. 

Get the shop to bag the hull skins for you and then you can very quickly finish off the skiffs yourself.

Once the hulls are pulled off the plug it would take an amature at the most 2 weeks to finish out one of these skiffs, very simple. Simple tools needed. Years ago I had a mold that friends would all get together after work and layup a hull in. Took a couple hours. They did this for 12 hulls and everyone then went on to finish each skiff at their own pace all having different interiors but the same hull. Very cost affective and fun way to go.

I have not designed a cored hull as to be very light the skins would be very thin. You would have the extra weight in all the core and adhesive. We are going for extremely light weight here. This skiff in plain old eglass and polyester resin would be a bit heavier. About 50-60 lbs and lots less in price. In strip planked cedar add the weight of the cedar or core to this. Still a great skiff. The heavier skiffs will feel better too. The draft differences will be unnoticeable.

The key to getting to this weight is in every little detail that is left in. All thats removed is extra weight.

-   High freeboard 18"-20"

This parts easy, just draw in that height of freeboard. In my design it works well. In a totally empty skiff of this design it will be a very rigid taught skiff if built in carbon. But with people aboard and weight in it this height really makes sense for what Ian would be using it for. I have drawn in a curved sheer so this skiff will be pleasing to the eye and not have that squashed look like so many of these skiffs today. Being light, long and with a reasonable amount of draft with one person sitting this skiff will handle well in a breeze when poling. Its narrow so with tall big fat people in it that dont understand that they are in a narrow skiff it could feel tippy with them plopping about the boat.

-   Self bailing hull, inside the cockpit to be knee deep.

I believe Ian wants the self bailing cockpit for safety reasons. It can be designed in with still having the knee height hes looking for. Barefoot from my cabin sole to the middle of my knees are right at 18" but Im only 53" tall so he must be guiding Hobbits about like me. 

Self bailing floors raise the level of gravity in a skiff and in a narrow boat this will make it feel and be more tippy. The advantage is the floor is flat and level out to the hull sides so no getting about in a curved hull bottom. In a light skiff like this the self bailing part can only work when you are out of the boat. The floor has to be just above the loaded waterline at rest. To have it work with everyone aboard it just gets to high. You also have to drain it which is a pain. I could see a short floor just aft of the forward bulkhead to be able to put a small folding chair on facing aft for one of the clients to sit in.

I would highly advise against putting one in. The extra weight is huge in a skiff like this. All you will need to bail this skiff out with is a sawed off Clorox bottle bottom to get water out if it rains or youre a sloppy driver. You could put a drain out the stern from the aft bulkhead but I hate putting in unneeded holes in a perfectly sound hull. If left in the rain this skiffs cockpit will fill up but it will have to be a good pour. The engine if tilted will stay out of the water if completely filled up. I have seen this in my own skiff many times. I would paint the hull inside with an aggressive nonskid if going for ultra light weight. If not the new rubber stuff I see but have never been around looks like the way to go. 

-   Minimal layout

Most all of these skiffs today are pretty simple inside. This design calls for no trim tabs, smallest battery possible for running lights. With LEDs today this means flash light size. I would run the stern light off the engine and just have stick on bow lights. It will have just two hatches. One will use my my new no hinge design and the aft one will be a drop over kayak type hatch. I would have very simple rod racks.

I recommend using inflatable bags fore and aft for flotation to satisfy the Coast Guard. I have drawn in a flat 5-1/2" wide gunnel sheer that will help as a spray catcher, a place to put the oar locks and push pole holders. The oars would-should be 12 long to be good for getting about and they would stow blades aft on the stern seat-deck. Poling tower legs could fit into glassed in sockets in the stern deck so it could be removed by lifting out. So pretty simple. No stern plug, through hulls, hoses. The only metal on the boat will be the 4 oarlock sockets in bronze and two 10-24 bolts for the forward hatch.

Minimal for sure.

-   5-6 casting decks, lots of cockpit room

The stern deck is 4 long with its raised hatch off the starboard side for the guide to sit on with a cushion on top to get some height. This type of hatch is extremely waterproof. Plus no hinges.

The foredeck is 6-6" long with a flush hatch that has my latest no fastening hinge design. This will be equally very water proof. Both decks are lower than the sheer so the hull will make a great fly line catcher. You can make these decks on a simple sheet of Formica plywood that has been waxed. Very simple and easy to do.The cockpit will have room but its realities are what you fill it up with. This skiff has too much storage space already so I would get one of those Yeti type coolers, glass in a bracket for it in the hull bottom when building. Thats a seat for one client or have them sit one looking one way the other the other way for balance. Remember you do not need trim tabs in a long narrow skiff, just shift body weight. Ha ! But theyre Americans and dont want to share a seat. Put one facing aft on the bow platform. Nope ! OK then you have to make a seat to fit in the floor that can be removed. Better to get the sports to sit lower in anyway. Or only guide people that are into what you are into.

I see lots of great cockpit layouts today in skiffs with the roll bar hand grip for the helmsman. This system I like very much if your not looking to save weight. Lots of ways to go if not planning on carrying this boat by hand.

-   4"-5" draft with 800 lbs in it ( thats people ,engine, gas, and tackle)

The draft displacement shown is at the 4" level with a load in it. The Coast Guard when I last looked, wants us to rate people at 160 lbs. they put this number out there I believe as a person floating in the water is not going to be as much as they are on dry land. I weigh at 53" under 155lbs. when I figure in my hull draft weights I base my final drafts by putting in the average American at  220 lbs. What,You say! To be honest this is a very conservative weight. Get your clients to step on a scale before going out. Any body over 220 lbs. costs mo

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Americas Cup Value to Sailing

I have recently been quite active on the LinkedIn forums about Americas Cup. It is not in my nature to participate in forums because I have found that it is all too easy to get drawn in and become embroiled, fending off attacks by Internet trolls whose great ambition in life is to be destructive to others. LinkedIn is a more closed community and less apt to show this nastiness and aggression. If I feel strongly enough about an issue then I will have my say and keep up with the rest of the discussion.

Just such a discussion came out of my last blog entry, about Race 13 exceeding the time limit. You can read that entry by scrolling down the page or go to the blog archive on the left of this blog. The response was that races should not have time limits and should just continue until there is a winner. It referenced baseball as a comparison. Discussion then progressed to the format that is being used for this current edition of Americas Cup, AC34. Some of my posts have been well received and it was suggested that one post in particular should be read by a wider audience.

I responded to the following question. I dont want to name the poster, I dont have his permission.

"So I am going to go back to my question on the cup. Forty minutes time limit for an Americas Cup race? I would like to see the last race ground out for say 2 hours of excitement vs. just 40 minutes. Are we an ADHD society that if it goes longer that 40 minutes we loose our audiance (sic). I dont care. Its the Americas Cup. It should be raced with sweat and tears to the end. It should go as long as a football game or basketball game(including time outs and media breaks). Shouldnt it?"

Here is my response.

"We all have our own ideas on what should be and what shouldnt be. Whos to say which is right? I agree that 40 minutes does seem too short a time limit but I understand the aim of the organisers to popularise sailing competition with the non-sailors and the parameters within which they were working.

Sailing is its own sport and it is evolving rapidly with technology. Do you really want to watch these two boats sailing back and forth upwind and downwind for 3 hours or more each race and potentially for 17 days (19 days including the 2-race penalty) in a row? That will drive the TV viewers back to whatever they were watching before AC34 came along.

I grow thoroughly bored watching football and baseball. They are stop-start games and they hold the attention of the audience for very short periods of action. The players get to rest for much of the duration and only work in short bursts. They can go on all night if needed, without burning themselves out. The crews on these boats are working hard the whole time, every race.

I think that it will work to compare AC racing with cricket. Test cricket takes 5 days of play, broken into 4 sessions each day. With no limits aside from the 5-day time limit, it often ends with no winner. It bores most people to tears. Then one-day international cricket was introduced, featuring 50 overs (300 balls) bowled by each team against the other batsmen. Suddenly cricket became interesting to a much wider audience. Now they play international 20-over games and the games are very exciting to watch, with massive viewership.

Rugby was always an exciting running game but it has also gone the same route of short, very fast and exciting games with the Rugby Sevens. This is what is needed to hold the attention of the modern world, where there is always something else trying to grab attention. Why should sailing not be right there in the fray also grabbing attention with short, fast and very exciting races.

Sailing is a sport of ageing players and needs new and young blood to survive. This event is likely to attract new people to sailing in one form or another. We can watch yacht racing as we knew it 20 years ago until it goes the way of the dinosaurs or we can embrace the new world and regenerate sailboat racing as a viable sport.

There is still a place for 5-day test cricket, for a much smaller audience than the other forms. Likewise, there is also still a place for the longer duration sailing races. I will be skippering a 38ft sailboat across the South Atlantic in January. We will be racing flat-out for 3 weeks from Africa to South America. There will be exciting times for me and my crew far away from the eyes of any TV audience. I enjoy that racing immensely, as a participant but I dont expect our slow progress across the ocean chart to keep anyone rivetted to the edge of their seat the way that AC34 is doing to us right now.

I think that with AC34 they have hit a winning formula and I am enjoying every short minute of it."

Thank you for taking the time to read my viewpoint. It is often a bit off the beaten track but I think that it is valid.

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The Crew of Black Cat for Cape to Rio

 Our crew for the 2014 Cape to Rio Race is mostly the same as we had for the 1996 running of this race. Here are bios for two of the crew.

Gavin Muller

Gavin Muller was 21 years old on the 1996 Race. He was the baby of the crew by a long way and received the brunt of the good-natured insults and joking on the voyage from the rest of us. He took it all in very good spirits, was a great crewman to have with us and proved to be very capable in all aspects of sailing our boat at high speed across the Atlantic.

Now, 18 years later, Gavin is a much more respectable age. At least he is now more than half my own age. Gavin cant have had any permanent damage from all of our ribbing on that race because it was he that put the thought in front of me to get the 1996 crew together again for the 2014 race. Wonderful idea, Gavin.

He obviously has a good sense of the ridiculous. The bio that he sent me begins with "I started sailing quite late in life at the age of 14". Heck, most sailors wish that they could have started sailing at that age instead of 30, 40 or even 60 years old. When you are 21 then 14 must be relatively late in life. After his late start in sailing, Gavin hasnt wasted his time and has accomplished much. His achievements include:-

Sank an Optimist on the start line of his first Interschools Regatta.
Rose to captain of his Bishops High School Sailing Club
Was part of the youngest crew to sail the Cape to Rio Race, in 1993
Crewed on "Black Cat" in Cape to Rio Race 1996
Member of line-honours crew in St Helena Race 1996 and sailed return to Cape Town.
Achieved Yachtmaster Offshore in 1997, with better grades than he managed in school.
Sailed his 2nd St Helena Race in 1998 and return voyage to Cape Town.
Moved to England Feb 1999, where he still lives.
Sailed 4 Fastnet Races and all qualifying races.
Sailed 7 Cowes Week Regattas.
Sailed 8 Round the Island Races (Isle of Wight).

Gavin is married to Nicole and they have two young children, Alice and George. He is Head of Operations at one of the most prestigious catering companies in London, so I guess that qualifies him to serve us some imaginative high-class meals in the middle of the South Atlantic.

Gavin with wife Nicole and children, Alice and George.

Gavin in Solent sailing garb.

Sean Collins

In my 60 years of sailing, Sean is the one who has sailed more miles with me than anyone else. We always clicked together on boats and have confidence in each other doing the right thing when needed, including to extricate us from some silly situation into which I have put us.

Sean first sailed at about 7 years old, with an uncle who owned an Enterprise dinghy. The bug bit and he broadened his sailing experiences with the Sea Scouts. Seans first offshore experience came in 1976 with his uncle, sailing from Durban to Cape Town on a newly-launched 45ft ferro-cement cruiser. Continuing further on the long-term cruise was thwarted by the need to finish schooling.

Sean is a surfer and spent a few years sailing Hobie cats before buying his own first offshore boat. This was a 28ft plywood double-ended ketch named "Elise". After breaking the mizzen mast she had lee-helm problems and that was what brought Sean and me together for our long association. He commissioned me to redesign the rig as a cutter. He sold "Elise" after he started crewing for me on my CW975 "Concept Won" sometime later.

Sean estimates that he has sailed roughly 10,000 sea miles with me on "Concept Won" and "Black Cat". He was my chosen partner whenever available for the double-handed races and regattas at Royal Cape Yacht Club and Hout Bay Yacht Club. He sailed with me on numerous Double Cape Races, Telkom Regattas, Old Brown Table Bay Regattas, Hout Bay Admirals Regattas, Hout Bay Double Regattas and the weekend and Wednesday night racing at RCYC, as well as the 1996 Cape to Rio Race.

Sean was in the crew of "Black Cat" right from the start, long before she even hit the water. He spent many weekends helping with building her, much of it doing a sterling and nasty job of epoxy coating and fibreglassing the joints of the drinking water tanks, to ensure that they would not fail us in mid-ocean.

Sean moved to England in 1998, with wife Lanesse (now ex-wife) and three daughters. There they spent time sailing the estuaries of the Thames and acquiring the new skills of safely navigating large tides and strong currents. Eventually they bought "Vortex", a Nicholson 35, which Sean refurbished for family cruising. In 2004 they headed South to find sunshine and spent 16 months cruising to the Canaries via France, Spain and Portugal. From there they all flew back to settle back in Cape Town. A year later Sean and his nephew double-handed "Vortex" to Cape Town via Cape Verde, Brazil and Tristan da Cunha.

Bad economic times in RSA resulted in Sean working for a few years in Bahrain, where he joined the Bahrain Yacht Club to keep in sailing. Back in RSA again, work commitments keep him away from home but he gets back to Cape Town regularly. Most of his sailing is currently  on inland waters, where he is an instructor with the youth sail training programme at Mountain Yacht Club on Ebenezer Dam.

Sean with Lanesse and daughters Abbey, Kelsey & Megan

Sean on "Vortex" at Hout Bay Yacht Club.

Gavin and Sean, I look forward to sailing with both of you again.



  

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To Desolation and Back

Two months ago, the Doryman voyage ethereal could be found in Olympia, WA setting forth on a trip to be remembered. The Stone Horse, Belle Starr, launched, rigged and headed north for her first real sea trial under her new skipper. At the time, preparations seemed daunting, even overwhelming. Belle Starr needed to be in Port Townsend, WA before the Bristol Channel Cutter, Baggywrinkle set out from Newport Oregon. The two boats were to join in a voyage north to Desolation Sound, Salish Sea, in early June. Doryman was to crew on the latter, then skipper the former.

The trip from Newport, Oregon to Port Townsend, Washington in the classic cutter, Baggywrinkle, took five grueling days. Skipper Chuck Gottfried, navigator Jamie Orr and myself endured all that might be expected and then some, on a northerly voyage "uphill" against ocean current and weather, along the northwest coast of the US. It was too wet and wild for any photos, and I suspect very little could be gleaned from them at any rate. Suffice to say, it is very impressive to sail off the top of a wave crest into a trough twenty feet below, for hours, and days, on end. The intrepid mariners arrived in Point Hudson Marina, all ahoo.


 


 Experienced mariners will tell you, any successful passage has had a good bit of luck. Luck was with us as we rounded Cape Flattery and into Neah Bay. Two days later we sailed into Port Townsend to rendezvous with Belle Starr and crew members Suzy Jo and Heather. I vowed at the time this was my last boat delivery northbound along this coast, but already the pain has subsided and the memory become heroic.

After a couple days of provisioning, the two cutter-rigged boats left for an overnight stop at Spencer Spit, Lopez Island, on the way to join with Paul Miller and his Friendship Sloop, Friendship. The voyage to Desolation Sound had begun.

One more night and we were in Bedwell Harbour, Pender Island, checking in with Canadian customs.

The twentieth of June found us visiting Paul and his wife, Elinor, who treated us like royalty, with a fine dinner, showers and their wonderful view of Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, BC.. The next morning three wooden sailboats left the North American home of the Cittaslow movement, on a voyage of discovery.

How fitting is that?

An overnight stop in Telegraph Harbour on Penelakut Island, brought us, on June twenty second, to Silva Bay, Gabriola Island and the remaining member of our flotilla, Jamie Orr, in his Phil Bolger Chebacco, Wayward Lass. Jamie is our piper and ships his bagpipes everywhere the Lass sails.

Gives us courage, he does.


In our next installment; crossing the legendary Strait of Georgia.






 Though Belle Starr is a cutter, she performs best in winds less than twenty five knots, rigged as a sloop. Her new tanbark genoa drives well in light air and is the only foresail we used the entire trip. There were times when less sail might have been prudent, but changing head-sails underway is quite a task. Fortunately Belle Starr is a well founded boat and performed exceptionally under a press of sail, earning her the moniker, The Red Rocket. We found the hard-chined, plywood Stone Horse to be a fine combination of performance, comfort and stability.

Our experience in the Salish Sea this summer is documented photographically on Dorymans Flickr site. The photos are not in any particular order and were submitted by all participants. In time, I may be able to add descriptions, but for now, Im sure you will enjoy the exquisite beauty of the area regardless.



This voyage ended with the annual gathering of gunkholers at the Sucia Island Rendezvous. Some of the photos toward the end of this album are from that event.

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What flats skiffs cost to build and sell

This post is not a tell all expose of the behind the scenes scheming of flats boat builders trying to get rich. Its just my way of trying to show you what things cost and how and why some skiffs cost what they do. With my basic information presented here you can go and look at your skiff or any other and add up the numbers to get a good idea of what its original cost was, is and where all your hard earned money is going.

To save you the time of reading the rest of this I will give you in site right now as to why so many skiffs cost what they do, its very simple, "because the market will bear it". 

The first thing you have to know is what the materials cost the builder. If you build lots of boats then you can get a slightly better discount on goods bought wholesale from either the manufacturer or the vendors that buy in bulk and resell to you. Most flats skiff builders are building a small amount of boats a year. Less than 200 is the norm. Small shops maybe 30-40 a year. The difference between these two shops will differ in buying power by very little between the two. The smaller shop will have smaller over head verse the big shop with employees and all that goes with size. So if a small time builder is producing 20 skiffs a year with low overhead but is charging the same or more than the big shops the potential for profit by a per skiff basis is way more than the bigger shop. But that profit is limited to 20 skiffs so the bigger shop can be way more profitable in the long run. 

I will be describing here a materials list that will fit any of the top end skiffs I built in 2000-2001 from 16-18.The only real difference in cost will be the slight added amount of fiberglass materials for the slightly longer hull and the added length of the rub rail. All the hardware is the same for most all skiffs. The time difference to add this hardware to a 16 skiff verese an 18er is nothing.

The fiberglass labor to build the bigger skiff comes to about 12% more.

All poling towers have the same amount of welds, bends, feet. Thats where the labor comes in. Aluminum sells by the pound so you are only buying as a builder onces more. 

Its these little details that save the builder money.

The prices here are from 2001. Sorry but Iam not in the business anymore so you will have to add inflation to these past real costs. Anyone with time to spare can look up these costs today. I leave that up to you. This is easy, but the sad thing you will see Is the increase in skiff prices from then to now but your wages and buying power is not in line with this increase. Thats just my opinion.

I will show a basic break down of one of my skiffs. I was going to print every last part down to the last screw and oz. of resin. Too long a list. But you will have to trust my list and numbers to get an idea of whats up.

PARTS AND HARDWARE

This is all the hardware, rub rails, electric wires connectors, cushions, batterys everything needed to put the skiff together.

$1,627.00

HYDRAULIC STEERING

This is what the whole setup costs including an Edson wheel.

$1,114.00

GELCOAT AND RESIN 

- 14 gals. For hull average

- 10 gals. deck , hatches

- 2 gals stringer

- 4 gals. Bulkheads

- 4 gals cockpit floor

- 4 misc, for tabbing in parts

38 gal total but will vary a bit between hull lengths by about 10-12%

$15.00 a gal. For vynelester resin= $570.00

GELCOAT 7 gals. For entire skiff about 5% difference between lengths.

$120.00

FOAM CORE

There are at least 10 excellent core brands out there to choose from. I always used either Dyvinycell, Kledgecell, or to me the best core, Corecell.

You have to add up the sq. ft. This is easy, just draw out the skiff as shown and add up the sq. ft.

- 180 sq. ft. Hull.       3/4"

- 108  deck.               3/4" 

- 42 floor                    3/4"

- 48 bulkheads.          3/4" and 1/2"

- 12 stern        3/4"   And  3/4" hard foam

- 4.5 tower lid.                  1/2"

- 3 misc. Deck supports. 1/2" 

- 6 rod racks                   1" hard foam

403.5 sq. ft. Core in varying thicknesses , densities.

- 7 gals bonding putty 

- 3 gals bonding resin used

$ 1,516.00 to bond core in skiff.

FIBERGLASS CLOTH, KEVLAR , CARBON FIBER CLOTH

Following is the layup schedule that I have used on most of the skiffs built during this time period. 

There have been variations due to the customer or what was going into the skiff but this Is my standard layup. Its very low tech and simple but becomes very high tech through the enginerring of how its put together. Works very well building by hand layup all the way through resin spray out guns and using a Vacume bag to hold the core In place. But I feel you and I can build a superior boat by hand with a brush, roller, and bucket if thats all thats available. All the rest diffinitly enhances the skiff build but just go for a ride in one of my 32 year old skiffs. Still cooking along.

HULL LAYUP

- gelcoat.                           Let cure

- 3/4 oz. skin out Matt.      Let cure

- 1-1/2 oz Matt. 

- 10 oz. layer Kevlar cloth

- 1-1/2 oz. Matt.                  Above three all at once, let cure

- fill in strakes with putty, let cure , agitate hull skin for core bonding

- bond core. Let cure

- fair core , fill voids

- 3/4 oz. Matt.

- 7 oz. layer eglass cloth laid up with Matt all at once.

DECK, HATCHES, COCKPIT LAYUP

- gelcoat                          Let cure

- 1-1/2 oz. Matt.              Let cure

- bond core.                     Let cure

- fair , fill voids

- 3/4 oz. Matt

- 7 oz. eglass cloth, all at onces with Matt.

BULKHEADS

- one layer 7 oz. eglass cloth on bare core.

STRINGERS 

Depending on floor size, stringers vary a bit. Described here is a simple hat stringer. Some I use are shaped like an H. The core is doing all the work, the stringer is just to support the floor. If the deck and the entire skiff is bonded as a whole then you do not need lots of thickness. In skiffs that have their decks riveted on or screwed on then its a whole other story.

- 2 - layers 1-1/2 oz. Matt with a 12" strip of Carbon unidirectional laid down the middle all at once.

- 40 yds 3/4 oz. Matt.

- 40 yds 1-1/2 oz Matt.

- 14 yds 10 oz. Kevlar cloth

- 32 yds 7 oz. eglass cloth 

- 12 Carbon unidirectional cloth 

 Material Costs total $ 615.00

TRAILERS 

Trailers vary in cost but have a very high markup from whole sale.

- $750.00 standard trailer

- $ 1,300.00 top of the line

ENGINES

All boat builders that have boat dealers can buy their engines from the manufactures if they can afford to be affiliated with them. That means you have to be able to have enough boats going out the door to be able to sell to dealers at a discount so that they can resell at a profit. 

If you can buy $100,000.00 dollars worth of engines up front then you get them for a great price. The deal is they go on the boat and boat dealer sells the boat and only he gets to do the warranty work or future maintence on it. As a builder once out the door its out of your hands. Now as a boat dealer engine sales shop you can buy engines from the manufacturer but at not as great a savings. What the manufacturers do is give them rebates for every engine sold. Sell a lot of engines and you make your profit from this. 

What does all this BS mean, if you are a small shop what you do is find a motor dealer and get him to sell to you at just above his cost with him getting the rebate and you maybe passing the savings onto the customer. What you are really after is the boat sale with lots of options to install.

A Big foot Mercury 60 hp cost whole sale $ 3,544.00 with the prop costing $210.00 more.

Ok we now have some numbers to add up;

- $1,627.00 parts 

- $ 1,114.00 steering

- $ 570.00 resin

- $ 120.00 gelcoat

- $ 1,516.00 core and bonding putty

- $ 615.00 fiberglass cloths

- $ 750.00 trailer

- $ 3,754.00 60 hp Merc 

Total... $ 10,066.00 for the total boat cost in materials wholesale to get it out the door in 2000-2001.

Today if you mark it up by inflation standards my guess is that most every thing has gone up quite a lot.

I would mark this up 30% today. I still do boat projects so I see the costs rising. 

The thing you need to look at, ask yourself at this stage is, why is that boat that has no hatches, very little hardware, weighs so very little with a tiller steering cost so much?

You can see what the materials I have used. These same ones you can use today to build your own skiff. 

I will try and sess out this dilemma next.

You have all the materials you need to build a skiff in a pile on the shop floor. Now you need to build the dream skiff. Skiffs need a shop to be built in, people to do the building and all the stuff that goes with trying to sell your skiffs to the public some where out there.

This takes start up money. You will need cash to get your shop and build your plugs and molds and then your first hull. If you can do all the design work yourshelf, all the plug and mold work on your own and then build the skiffs on your own you will save a ton of cash. But you will only build a few skiffs a year. This I did in my early years making a living but could always see that if I could just build five times the amount I could then make a good profit. Thus in come the employees the added costs and so on.

By the time I sold out my share of Hells Bay Boatworks to my partners we were a well oiled machine with many boat models, a very low overhead as we owned everything built to date and only had the mortgage to pay and the standard cost of having employees. But as Ive  already explained I wanted to go sailing with my family so I sold out. Best thing I did for lots of reasons.

The break downs of the rest of the skiffs costs are based on that time. Today they could be the same , way more or very little. Depends on how much your start up costs were-are and your current overhead. Buying a company and pouring tons of advertising money at it with all the start up costs can be earned back in the long run if done well and you have deep pockets or investors that have them to.

Everybody that I have ever worked for wanted a good return on their investment so have always been under pressure to get it right the first time.

Once you have your skiff built and know its costs you can then set its price. With lots of similar skiffs about all claiming to be the greatest thing invented in the last few years you will have to decide where you will fit in this market. Having very high priced skiffs can make it very easy to get more for your skiff as the others have set the bar. Theres nothing better than having a very well built, designed and known skiff that really performs with a great reputation to keep the hype flowing and the market value up. Its called marketing. But some might say its also profiteering too. Well weer talking about skiffs here not oil or food.

LABOR , EMPLOYEES, ugh

This is a break down of what I think your average hired fiberglass workers, riggers should take to build a skiff. I always think of the skiffs built to my designs and engineering at HBBWs as low tech - high tech. By this I mean that the employees building the skiffs were mostly people that wanted steady employment but had no knowledge of boats or boating or could care either. Just a job. But with the proper training and motivation you can get a great crew together to build a high tech boat. The high tech part of the building comes from the engineering of putting it all together. Today my guess is there are a bunch of younger people out there that want to be part of this industry so theres a better chance of getting people to move to the next level and be more well rounded so as to be able to do it all.

In rigging you have to get the crew to care for the boats so they will treat them like a favorite posseion.

Once you get them to see it your way and understand the value of what they are working on then your screw ups go away.

I have worked at every level of building boats hands on so Iam very familiar with all aspects of building from the drawings through sea trials. This has helped me tremendously in my career. The hours I show here can vary a bit but not widely unless you have very new, or very slow workers. If you are infusioning a skiff with high tech epoxy resin the labor is about the same or less with a crew that understands the process. The rise in cost is in resin only. But you want to put in all these new fancy cloth weaves that sound so great on paper. Not for me ! Waste of money. I feel all the hybrid Biaxells take up more resin, and are prone to high impact shattering because of the way they lay. An infused epoxy hull with these cloths having to be pulled and compressed over many tight lifting strake angles is a pain in the butt. As soon as your hull has been lifted out of the mold go and look at it to see all the little air bubbles and resin pockets in the cloth and Chines. But oh ! When we go to paint over all this you can fix it then. Not for me.

Ask your builder why a hull that is so light with so little resin used and so little cloth needed costs so much. Do the math, a 375 lb skiff cant have too many gallons of resin and cloth. The cores the same pretty much for all skiffs. 

TO BUILD A SKIFF -  THE HOURS

- sell skiff.                                                                 ? Lots 

- wax molds.                                                             2 days

- spray gelcoat all parts.                                            1 day

- skin all parts, layup all parts                                     2-3 days

- core boat - by hand , Vacume bagging, or infusion. 3-5 days 

-finish glass all parts.                                                  2-3 days                                                                                      

- remove parts, cut , trim parts.                                  2-3 days

- assemble boats from all parts.                                  7-10 days

- rig skiff, carpet, tower all hardware.                          3-4 days

- rig skiff electrical.                                                      2-4 days

- install motor, steering                                                2-3 days

- finish details, fix dings etc.                                        1 day

27 days x 8 hours a day = 216 hours to build, rig an average skiff as described without options.

39 days max worst case scenario. If this is happening you need to see whats up to get the hours down.

Lets split the difference on the two and end up with 280 hours to finish.

280 hrs. X  $ 20.00 US average wage cost back then = $5,600.00

Workers costs back then were from $11.00 an hour to $ 18.00 with most in the $ 13.00 an hour area.

The two shop foremans wages were more. The wages of the owners are included in my estimate. We had a health plan for all employees. We gave out bonuses every year to all employees.

Now take the two costs ;

$ 10,066.00 materials

$ 5,600.00 labor

= $ 15,666.00 

Now we have to add in the mortgage, building insurances, advertizing, extra employees like the secretary, alarm company, electric, waste disposal of acetone, lawyers, company trucks, inventory,

Future plug and mold building, tools needed, dinning out smoozing clients,and so much more. 

Yikes ! Iam so glad to be anchored here in the Leewards remembering why Iam here.

This is where in todays Internet world you can do very well advertizing through facebook, instagrame, and other venues for very little. You still will have to get someone to deal with this though. You wont have time as youll be building and selling. Starting with a small shop building a very good designed and built skiff with a well controlled overhead with good employees should keep the costs of your skiff low. But with more models you need more room and more people.

To wrap this thought process up the average cost for a top end skiff out the door in 2000-2001 cost about $18,900.00 to $20,000.00.

For the simple bottom line skiffs they cost about $12,000.00 + -

When I started HBBWs with Hal and Flip the overhead was low, not many employees, very little advertizing costs, wages were low. As we got bigger so did the costs.

Now some of you will say " wow I paid way less". Yes but what Iam showing is for a wheel steered skiff with a rigged bait well. Tiller boats were less, side consoles a bit less than a center console and so on. 

The place where real profit lay was in the options list. This is stuff you dont want to give away with a standard boat so you put this stuff on the options list. The markup here is mostly profit. To builders this is where you get ahead in sales profit. This is where you hear all the crazy prices coming from.

I had many clients that wanted to see the sales ticket for the most expensive skiff built to date so they could figure out what else to order. These were always the worst skiffs as too much going on. But yes there was good profit there.

Simple open skiffs today with no floors and hatches that drain into the cockpit and tiller steered are very cost effective to build. Less parts and labor. Not much in materials for the hull and deck.

Building a one off top line skiff on your own today will take an amature about 600-700 hours to build and rig. A simple tiller skiff 250 hours less.

The material costs will be about $9,000.00 more or less without an engine for a top line skiff.

To build an all epoxy skiff one off will cost about $2,800.00 more in resin costs.

A 17 tiller home built skiff will cost in materials about $4,500.00

 Iam now back to what I said in the beginning of this , people buy these skiffs because they can afford them, because they have no time or skill to build their own or they make to much to stop and build their own. Because they like the idea of a well crafted product and the process of having their own boat built. They buy them because they can be way better at getting near fish than in the wrong skiff.

Lots of reasons. 

I have worked all over the place on many different projects for a days wages. The only times I made any real money were when I owned my own business, made a profit and then sold that business or land. 

Yes these skiffs can cost and some do a lot and can be worth it. Others are riding on the others backs and picking up sales by being a bit less in price. So look at what you are buying or lusting after.

I think for lots of guys out there its time to clean out the garage and save a pile of dough and build your own skiff.

I would love to own a Finnish built Swan 42 sloop but the price tag is way out of my range, so I built my own boat and have been using it now pretty much non stop since 1999. 

  

Hope this helps

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