guide to make boat

I designed the Paper Jet to be an exciting junior trainer, capable of taking a young sailor through multiple skill-levels, from a basic free-standing una-rigged dinghy through to a high-performance trapeze skiff with asymmetric spinnaker. This it does without having to spend bundles of money to trade up to another boat, by doing it all on the same hull and adding or swapping rig and hardware components. She is extremely light, with the hull weighing only 94lb, easily manhandled by small crew.

Paper Jet in una-rig Lite format.

It has proven capable of doing all that I intended, although I have used my prototype #001 as a single-hander for myself. I have cruised it in sedate fashion in light breezes, when it reels off the miles. I have also blasted on trapeze at well over 20 knots just clipping the tops of the waves. And between those two extremes she has given me many hours of fun and exhilarating sailing.

Paper Jet in Turbo format, with asymmetrical spinnaker on the foredeck.

But, I have had knee problems since a teenager, from surfing too many hours in icy cold water without a wetsuit. Now, 50 years later, it has caught up with me. My knees won't let me get out on trapeze any more and my left knee dislocated at least 6 times while sailing this past weekend. In the middle of a tack is no time to be manipulating a dislocated knee back to its intended format.

So, the Paper Jet prototype, sail #001, is for sale. She comes with all components for all three rig formats as well as upgrades that I made to the design over the 8 years that I have sailed her. Included are:-

Standard mainsail
Turbo full-batten fathead mainsail
Jib on roller-furler
Asymmetrical spinnaker with sock
Mast with short and long topmasts
Boom
Retracting bowsprit
Daggerboards - three different lengths
Rudders - old and new versions
All deck hardware
All standing & running rigging
Launching dolly

Selling price is $8,000, which is not a lot more than the material cost to build her with all of the sails and bits that she has. She is in good shape, with totally watertight hull, just needing some minor paint and varnish touch-ups. We will have her at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic CT this coming weekend, from Friday through Sunday. After that she will be back at our base in Virginia Beach VA.

If interested, please contact me.

Summer heat is setting in and minds are turning to activities that can keep us cool. Time for us to get out on the water and go boating.

Time also for the Wooden Boat Show, which takes us north on a 500 mile road trip from the rapidly over-heating Virginia to the somewhat cooler climes of New England, more particularly the very beautiful Mystic Seaport. I must admit that in June/July I think that part of Connecticut must be a great place to live. Then I think about how much I dislike the (much milder) cold of a Virginia winter and know that I was built for much more tropical places.

The Wooden Boat Show  will be 26-28 June and we will once again be exhibiting our bright yellow Paper Jet prototype. Close by, in the "I Built It Myself" section, will be the prototype of our new 16ft garvey design. This is "Inlet Runner", exhibited by amateur builder Kevin Agee of Hampton, Virginia. He is working long hours into the night to get it finished in time for the show. It will be showing off its very fresh paint job. Never having built a boat of any size or type before, he has surprised himself with the high standard of work that he has achieved.

Kevin Agee's "Inlet Runner" 16ft garvey nearing completion.

We are also using this opportunity to do the official launch of my new book "South Atlantic Capsize - Lessons Taught by a Big Ocean Wave". We will have copies on hand at a special show price and you may be able to pin me down long enough to sign your copy. Special show price only to those who visit us at the show.

To see more about our boat designs, please visit our main website or our new mobile website.

Last night we went live with a new section of our website, optimised for mobile devices. You can access it via a link to it on our desktop home page or via the direct address http://dixdesign.com/mobile.

Screenshot of mobile website

This new site is fast and compact, to load pages and information as quickly as possible on mobile systems. It has most of the functionality of our desktop site, from researching designs through to placing an order through our secure order system.

It also gives fast access to our blogs, videos on Youtube, image albums on Flickr and to our social media pages on Facebook and Google Plus.

The boat design links for more information currently go to the design pages on our desktop site, which are best viewed in landscape mode if on a smartphone. Over coming weeks I will build compact pages for all of our designs, for better viewing of core info on mobile devices and linking to the desktop site for more detailed info.

Please visit http://dixdesign.com/mobile and cruise the new site. If you want to offer feedback on it, feel free to email your comments to me via the email links on one of our contact pages. Thanks for visiting.

Most of you will have read here or elsewhere about our adventure in the 2014 Cape to Rio Race on the Didi 38 "Black Cat". I have published a book about it, which can now be ordered from our website. For those who don't know what happened, here is a synopsis of the book, which is titled "South Atlantic Capsize - Lessons Taught by a Big Ocean Wave".

At dusk on 5th January 2014, the Didi 38 "Black Cat" was struck by a massive wave on the second day of the 2014 Cape to Rio Race across the South Atlantic Ocean. The wave capsized her in an instant, flinging crew, equipment and food around the interior and destroying most of the electronics with water that entered through the companion hatch. "Black Cat" recovered very quickly but the electrical damage was done. This is the story about the race, the boat, the crew and what happened on that day.

Front cover of the new book

It also explains the principles of stability that control the safety of monohull sailboats, mostly those characteristics that affect the behaviour of boats in large beam seas that might capsize them and the features needed to quickly return them to upright. It does this in words and terms that can be easily understood by non-technical people.

Back cover.

You will also read the story of the capsize of the 64ft "Sayula II" in the Southern Ocean when sailing between Cape Town and Sydney in the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race, written by yacht designer Butch Dalrymple-Smith, who was one of the crew. Also what one boat owner has added to his own boat to prepare it and himself in case they are caught by conditions that place them at risk of capsize.

I managed to coerce two of the crew to also put pen to paper, to each write a short piece about his experience. I felt this to be important because we all observe events from our particular points of observation and positions in life. My view from the inverted cabin roof of Sean Collins hanging on for his life in the cockpit and of Adrian Pearson flying like a rag doll around the cabin is very different from that of Sean looking down the steep slope of a monster wave and seeing the masthead spearing into the ocean below, knowing that the boat will follow deck-first.  I would have liked to have had stories from the other two crew as well but they did not feel capable of effectively putting their stories into words.

You can buy the book at http://dixdesign.com/articles.htm. We can ship to you wherever you are, at our normal shipping rates.

To view our range of boat designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/

Every now and then a boat catches my attention and I think "Hmm, I wouldn't mind owning that boat myself". Such a thought crossed my mind when I saw photos of "Day Dream". She is a Didi 40cr, essentially the same as the Didi 38 "Black Cat" that I built and sailed for so many thousands of miles, but with extended stern and a bit more accommodation space.

Fast as "Black Cat" is, "Day Dream" has the potential to be still faster. She has the same very slippery hull but her extended stern increases her speed potential. She has the same powerful but easily-handled rig, with a bit less draft, for better access to shallower cruising grounds.

"Day Dream" in the slings, showing off her clean lines

She was professionally-built in Antalya, Turkey, with CE certification. She has a radius chine plywood hull with fibreglass deck. She was a custom build, so the builder has made a few styling changes from my design but overall the boat looks really nice. I see European influences and features that are fine for local cruising in the Med. With my own preference for ocean voyages, I would modify the navigation and galley areas to better suit my own needs.

Nicely fitted out, with clean and comfortable saloon

Clean galley, styled for local cruising.

The asking price for "Day Dream" is not much more than the material cost of building such a boat, at US$60,000. If I had the cash available, I would be sorely tempted. If she rattles your cage enough to want to investigate further, contact me by email. I will put you in contact with the owner for more information.

Not the greatest sailing photo but the best that I have.

To view this and our other designs, visit http://dixdesign.com/.

I wrote in January about the 16ft plywood garvey being built by Kevin Agee. Kevin is progressing nicely and benefitting from the very welcome spring that has finally arrived and eased out the rather brutal winter. Now it is easier to do woodwork and epoxy cures much faster, so work progresses more quickly. Epoxy coatings in the sealed spaces are being completed and this weekend the deck will be glued on.

Hull skin completed, interior details being fitted.

Supports for battery box and fuel tank.

Deck stringers going in, test fitting of fuel tank.

Bottom runners serve as stringers and bottom protection.

Dry-fitting deck, ahead of final installation this weekend.

Kevin Agee is doing a nice job of his project and will display it in the "I Built It Myself" section of the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport at the end of June. If you want to see this boat, that will be the place to do it.

Plans are not yet ready for selling but should be in a month or two. We will offer it as plans and instructions, with options of full-size patterns or a pre-cut plywood kit.

To see our designs for your next amateur project, please visit our website at http://dixdesign.com .

Following on my previous post about a big catamaran, here is the other extreme. This catamaran is only 9ft long and primarily intended for use by children. But read to the end to see an alternative use.

I designed the Oppikat for Nebe Boats a long time ago. They were to build it as a fibreglass production boat but didn't even start to build the moulds before closing their doors. More recently I converted the plans to a combination of plywood and strip cedar construction, to make the design more suitable for amateur builders. We have sold plans for this design to builders in 18 countries but don't know how many are sailing.

A new Oppikat is about to be launched, built by Greg Mitchell in California. She may be launched this weekend.

The newest Oppikat, ready for launch by Greg Mitchell.

Greg built it for his children from a plywood bulkhead kit but built the rest of it from the plans.

Strip planking completed, over plywood bulkheads, ready for plywood side panels.

Greg's daughter had input into the colour scheme for the new boat, choosing the colour of the cross-beams. Greg modified the tone of the blue for the hulls to a colour that would not clash. The result is very eye-catching and definitely has a female touch to it.

Hulls completed and other components assembled, ready for the rig.

This little boat is small enough to be car-topped or lashed to the trampoline of a bigger cat when towed behind the family car.

Oppikat built by Frank Nagel in Germany for his children, sailed here by his son.

Although intended for children, Frank Nagel in Germany told me that it has enough buoyancy to sail with him and two children aboard as well.

The Oppikat can be different things to different users. It fits comfortably onto the foredeck or into the davits of cruising catamarans, to serve as a tender and as a toy for both children and adults when anchored. A pair of them on a charter catamaran will add lots of scope for fun activities.

The red image is an Oppikat on the trampoline of a DH550 cruising catamaran.

For more info on this little boat go to http://dixdesign.com/oppikat.htm and to http://dixdesign.com/ for our full range of boat designs.