guide to make boat

About 9 years ago we turned 50 and had a big party. Now we have turned 80. How did we age so fast, another 30 in less than 10 years?

The answer is that we have now sold our boat designs to customers in 80 countries. That is the power of the internet. It allows us to reach, communicate with and support people in almost any country in the world. We are able to support a builder in a small country on the other side of the world just as easily as a builder around the corner from us.

As long as we are able to communicate by email, the builder can send me questions and I can respond in a reasonably short time. That is easy enough if the builder is fairly comfortable with English but it has sometimes presented challenges when neither of us understands the language of the other. On-line translation services have helped tremendously, allowing me to translate the questions into English, write the answer then translate back into the builder's language before sending the email. The translation sometimes needs a bit of interpretation because of the translation program using general terms rather than boating terms but the message does get through.

When I was a kid, my parents used to talk of Outer Mongolia as a really out-of-the-way place, even more unreachable than Timbuktu. They were right, of course, but the world has changed. Now we have 11 boats, from 15 to 43ft, being built or already in the water, in a city named Irkutsk. This city is on the shores of Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. It is more than 1 mile deep in places, holds 20% of all of the fresh water in the world (as much water as all of the Great Lakes together) and it would take the Amazon River 5 years to fill it. Irkutsk is in the middle of Siberia, Russia, to the North of Mongolia. I find it amazing that we have so many customers in a remote place like that. Their water is frozen almost half the year, so they have a short sailing season. That doesn't stop them from wanting to build boats. Read more about the amazing Lake Baikal.

The boat above is a Didi 26 being built in Irkutsk by Ivan Vasilyev. A bigger sister, the Didi 38, is being built by Stanislav Pechenkin.

We have other boats being built in many other places that are seldom, if ever, heard of. You can see the countries where we have sold plans on our countries page.

It is growing cold here but not as cold as Siberia, I am sure. We have snow flurries in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow will be the day for adding Christmas lights to the outside of the house. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Dudley

Visit our website.

We have developed a strong following among amateur boatbuilders over many years. This did not happen by accident because my own roots are deeply bedded in amateur projects of my own. I built my first boat in 1974, a 4.5m (14' 9") tortured plywood single-handed trapeze catamaran that I raced for a few years. This was also the first design that I drew, as an inexperienced amateur.

That was followed in 1975 by the 11m (36ft) "Tai-Neam" to a van de Stadt design, the 10m (34ft) "Concept Won" to our award winning CW975 design and the 11.5m (38ft) "Black Cat" to our Didi 38 design, prototype for our very successful radius chine plywood building method. There were also a few dinghies and canoes, the last being the prototype of the Paper Jet trapeze skiff design.

But this post is not about my own projects, it is about other amateurs building our boats. They number in the thousands. Most go about building their boats at their own pace, then launch and sail them without ever contacting us again.

The boat above is an Hout Bay 30, built in Germany by Christiane and Jorg Langanky. They built their boat, sent me photos and have now sailed away to cruise the world.

There are also many builders who like to show  their projects, to proudly display what they have achieved. I am thankful to those builders for sending us the info, either photos or links to websites or blogs about their projects.

We have a large section of our website dedicated to amateur projects of all sizes, with photos of boats being built and completed projects. Some of them have links to websites where the owners have taken the trouble to document every step of the build with photos, posting them for others to follow.

Time pressure has prevented me from adding to that section for awhile but technology came to my rescue. Now many builders choose blogs to show their projects. When they send us the link we list them on our Amateur Builders Web Links.

If you are considering building a boat yourself and are concerned about your ability to take on such a build, take a look at the projects. The links are sorted by design to make it easier to find what you want. Most of these pages are in the language of the builder but some browsers can be set to automatically translate them into your own language.

Here are some examples from our list.
Quinn Farnes building his Paper Jet in California.
Sergey Bogdanov building his Argie 15 in Russia.
Roland Zellweger building his Didi 26 on a beach in the Philippines.
Jarl Steffanson building his Hout Bay 33 in Iceland.
Marco Gheri and Alessio Bianchi building their Vickers 45AC in Italy
.
If you are already building one of our boats and you have a blog for the project, please send me the link so that I can add it to the list.

Have a great holiday season.

Dudley Dix

Today was the launch day for the new Dix 38 Pilot, �Imagine�. She is owned by Giulio and Lidia Mazzolini of Milan but will be berthed here in Trieste, near to the holiday home of the owners.

�Imagine� was beautifully built by the expert Italian craftsmen of Cantiere Alto Andriatico S.r.l. This is a yard that is expert in building and restoring wooden boats to a very high standard. I was privileged to be able to see a number of boats that they have built or restored, some of which were on an exhibition that I was able to visit in Trieste.
�Imagine� is aluminium, so somewhat out of the main area of expertise of Caintiere Alto Andriatico but they seem to have adapted their skills to finish her in gorgeous style. They received an unfinished hull, after the original builders went into liquidation and have taken her through to completion.

The rig must still be fitted to �Imagine� and a few other things sorted out, as is always the case with a new boat. It will be a few weeks before she comes to life under sail.

I congratulate the owners and the builders on the new baby. She makes me proud.

Dudley Dix

On Tuesday 2nd November I fly out to Italy, for a two week visit. I will be the guest of the owner of a new aluminium Dix 38 Pilot that will be launched in Trieste on 6th November. She is being built by professional builders in Italy. Here are photos of her when the structure was completed.


I will also visit the builders of a Vickers 45AC in Florence and spend time doing touristy things like soaking up whatever I can of the ancient world, not available to us in the New World. The young guys think that I am old enough to be part of the Ancient World anyway but there is no doubt that I can benefit from being immersed in culture for a couple of weeks.

My wife, Dehlia, will keep the office running as usual. She does all the important things around here anyway, while I draw pictures of boats. I am indebted to her for putting up with me all these years and helping to make boats so much a part of my life.

I will be back at home 16th November.

Dudley

A few posts back I announced the latest addition to our radius chine plywood Didi range, the Didi 28. This design was commissioned by an amateur builder in Greece who wanted a maxi trailer-sailer, along the lines of the Didi 26 but with more space and comfort.

Panel files are now complete for the bulkheads and all of the skin panels for hull, deck, cabin and cockpit. They can be cut by any of our normal plywood kit providers, who are listed on our kits page. The panel files will be supplied to whichever of those suppliers you choose to cut it for you. There are contact links to all suppliers on that page.

See our full range of designs.

Dudley

I was surprised a few weeks ago to hear that a photo of a Cape Henry 21 is on the front cover of the June issue of Sailing magazine. It was another week before I had a copy in my hands to see for myself . It really is a beautiful Billy Black photo of "Mehala" in drifting conditions on Long Island Sound. It was taken while we were waiting for some breeze to do a sail test for Wooden Boat magazine in June 2009.

I contacted the staff of Sailing to thank them and have also sent them all that is needed for a design review. Watch for that in an upcoming issue.

"Mehala" was owner-built by South African Mike Smith, who lives in Darien, Connecticut. He berths her at Norwalk Yacht Club on Long Island Sound, where he is a past commodore.


Mike did a very nice job of building "Mehala". She is very pretty and sails well (not that I was able to experience her sailing ability, the breeze never did excede about 2 knots).

I was on "Mehala" with Dan Segal, who was commissioned by Wooden Boat to author their sail test. He gave her an excellent review, which covers 6 full pages of the July/August issue of Wooden Boat, currently on the shelves. My thanks go to Dan Segal and the staff at Wooden Boat for such a wonderful review and to Mike Smith for allowing us the use of "Mehala".