my new boat

Radek Kowalczyk is sailing his little boat "Calbud" in the Mini-Transat single-handed race that is currently being sailed between France and Brazil. He is the third Polish sailor to sail in this event. His boat is built from radius chine plywood, to the first version of our Didi Mini design. Radek is proving to be a resilient sailor.

Radek was unlucky, on the first leg, to hit a whale. The inpact damaged his keel, necessitating heading into a small harbour in Portugal to make repairs. The damage appears to have been primarily delamination of the carbon skin that he applied over the outside of my aluminium keel design. The repair kept him in port for a few days before he could resume his voyage.

Radek and "Calbud" arrived in Madeira yesterday to a massive welcome from fellow competitors, family and friends. He and his boat were both given a clean bill of health by doctors and the Mini 650 class inspectors respectively. Today they set off on the second leg of the race, more than 3000 miles to Brazil.


Radek is a great example of what this race is all about. He is resilient in the face of adversity and does whatever is needed to achieve his goal of sailing this race. He is part of an ever-growing group of single-handed sailors who treat each other with great respect. They support each other like family, to help each other through these events.

Radek, you have earned our respect and I wish you the best of sailing for the rest of this race.

We have a new small sailboat taking shape in a remote workshop in rural North Carolina. It is a performance dinghy with a twist. It will be an exciting boat with a trapeze or two, or a ballast bulb can be added to the daggerboard to make a more docile small sportboat or family funboat. This is the first time that we are showing it anywhere public because it is not yet ready for plans sales. The design has taken a backseat due to pressure from other designs, so it has gone rather slowly

We have added an option of cruising fin keels to the DH550 performance cruising catamaran design. The plans continue to show the daggerboards that were originally in the design and additional drawings are now included to show the fixed keels.


Daggerboards offer improved windward performance and the ability to pull the boards up for beaching and for side-slipping in extreme weather. Cruising keels offer simpler sailing.

This option will also be available on the smaller sister, the Dix 470, when any builder wants that feature.

Visit http://dixdesign.com/ to see all of our designs.

Dudley

Hurricane Irene is one mean gal. She has us in her sights here in Virginia Beach and will arrive Saturday. Forecasts are that she will go right over us before heading for New York, Boston and points North.

There is likely to be a lot of flood and wind damage around here, with prolonged power outages that could go on for a fortnight or more. If you are unable to make contact with us in the aftermath of Irene, please bear with us. We will be back on-line and working as soon as we can. We have a generator to keep the office and household going but will still have no contact with the outside world if there are widespread outages that shut down communications.

For now, we are battening down the hatches and moving all loose stuff indoors. This will be the first major storm test for my new boat shed, in which my Paper Jet is hiding from the angry elements.

Dudley

I returned home yesterday from the 24th Metal Boat Festival, held 19-21 August at the Cap Sante Boat Haven in Anacortes, WA. The venue was good, there was an interesting array of metal boats to be viewed on the  marinas and great people to meet and with whom to socialise.

I was lucky to be the guest of Ian and Laurie Clark, on their centre cockpit Dix 43 "Namo". She was beautifully built by John Dearden of Gibsons, BC. I was made to feel very welcome and tried very hard to behave myself (not that easy).


Highlight of the weekend was the very interesting presentation by Charmaine Lingard (assisted by daughter Sindella) about their voyaging in the Antarctic and Chile aboard Vickers 45AC "Vlakvark". Charmaine had the audience enthralled with her video showing the interaction of her family with nature in this extreme climate. This part of the 3-day program alone was worth the effort of flying across the continent to attend.

My thanks to Charmaine Lingard and Brian Russell for their presentations, which supported my own talks, helping to make this a successful event.

Every now and then I am sent a truely gorgeous photo of one of my boats, which I just have to show off.

Today I received this beautiful one from Tony and Angela Maslin, of their Dix 43HD "Tana Vika". They were sailing in company with Beth Leonard and Evans Starzinger on "Hawk" along the Newfoundland coast. Thanks to Beth for the photo.

 "Tana Vika" was built by Neriede Yachting in Czech Republic. Tony and Angela took delivery at the yard in motor-away state, without the rig. They motored through the rivers and canals of Europe to UK, where the rig was fitted. Since then they have crossed the Atlantic and cruised the Caribbean and East Coast of USA and Canada.

Her construction is aluminium and she was built from a kit that was pre-cut by CNC using cutting files prepared by Robert Christinger of Alumar Yachts.

PS. When Tony sent me the photo he said that they were able to hold "Hawk", a Samoa 47, for the 30 mile beat during which the photo was taken. I didn't initially include it in my blog in case Tony was stretching the truth a bit. Since then Beth has confirmed that the two boats had a great race and were a good match.

The Metal Boat Festival is a gathering of people who are involved with steel and aluminium boats and takes place annually in the Pacific Northwest. It has moved around this beautiful area and this year it takes place at the Cap Sante Boat Haven in the Port of Anacortes Marina from 19-21 August.

This year I will be one of the speakers at the Festival. I have participated four times since 1998 but have not been there for about 5 years. I look forward to returning and renewing old friendships.

On the Friday evening I will be the dinner speaker, with a PowerPoint illustrated talk about growing up as a surfer/sailor/amateur boatbuilder in South Africa, how it affected the development of my career as a yacht designer and the subsequent path that I have taken.


On Saturday afternoon I will talk about developments in boat design through the years. This will be partly historical and partly current trends and will also be a PowerPoint presentation. It will cover such issues as hull, keel, rudder and rig design and the effects that decisions have on the behaviour of the resulting boat.

On Sunday morning I will be one of the panel in the Designers and Builders Forum. This is an open discussion with people from the floor asking questions of the designers and builders on the panel. From past experience, this leads to valuable and very interesting discussion, with the members of the panel offering their solutions to problems posed.

The program includes interesting presentations by boat builders and others from the boating industry on a wide range of subjects related to building, owning, maintaining and cruising boats generally, with a strong leaning toward metal boats. A highlight will be a talk by Charmaine Lingard about their voyages between Canada and Antarctica, over the barbecue dinner on Saturday evening. Their boat is "Vlakvark", built in South Africa to my Vickers 45AC design. See the full festival schedule .

Berthing will be available on the marina for metal boats associated with the Festival. One of them will be the aluminium centre cockpit Dix 43 "Namo", owned by Ian Clark and built by John Dearden in Gibson, BC.


So, if you are interested in metal boats, or want to learn more about them, Anacortes could be the best place to be on 19-21 August.