New Plywood Dix 43 Launched

Back in the late 1990s Roy McBride of Hout Bay, South Africa, asked me if he could build my steel Dix 43 design in plywood. He had been very impressed by my radius chine plywood method that I developed to build my Didi 38 "Black Cat". He built his boat from the steel plan set assisted by some new drawings detailing important aspects that I supplied. The resulting boat was "Flying Cloud", which resides at Hout Bay Yacht Club.

Roy McBrides "Flying Cloud", built to a very nice standard.

I have never added the Dix 43 to our plywood design list because it is not a fully detailed plywood design. But it does make a really nice boat in that material when a builder wants to build from plywood. Another of these boats has been launched in South Africa, this one built by Gert Bruwer of Saldanha Bay on the West Coast. He has built the aft cockpit version, whereas "Flying Cloud" has a customised deck that is a mixture of our centre cockpit and pilothouse versions.

Gert Bruwers Dix 43 "Scylla".

Gert has been a very loyal customer. He has previously built a steel boat to this same design as well as a steel Dix 38 and a plywood Didi 34 . He preferred the radius chine plywood building method, so selected it for this latest boat.

"Scylla" on hull-turning day. Much of the interior is already in.

Galley of "Scylla", traditional finish of white with hardwood trim.

"Scylla" is sailing well but I dont yet have sailing photos of her.

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

Read More..

Dudley Dix Yacht Design Calendar 2015

Our 2015 calendar is ready and our first stocks arrived today. If you are a lover of our designs then this calendar will be a great piece of art to fill that empty space on the wall of your office, home or workshop.

The cover photo (also November) is a beautiful sunset photo sent by Phil Semenov of his self-built Didi 34, sailing in Ukraine.

Here are a few other sample pages.

June is a collage of photos showing the Cape Henry 21 built by Roeboats of Co Cork in Ireland. They used some interesting and very pretty detailing in this boat, built for a customer from France.

August is the Didi Sport 15 project of Hunter Gall in Virginia Beach, USA. She is named "Scallywag", which is what Hunters grandfather called him as a child. The main photo is an interesting view during construction and has a somewhat spiritual feel.

December is Petr Muziks Shearwater 39 "Shoestring III" sailing in St Helena Bay, South Africa. Petr circumnavigated on this boat when well into his seventies.

Order your calendar from our website via the link on our homepage at http://dixdesign.com/ and we will mail it to you.

Alternatively, click here to order from our  publisher, Lulu. They will print and ship one copy, or as many as you want, from their closest affiliate to your delivery address.

Either way, get yours now to be ready for January 2015.

If you have one of our boats and would like to see it featured in one of our calendars, please send me some nice high resolution photos of her. The pics need to show her in pretty surroundings or to be interesting in some other way. Now is a good time to start with the 2016 calendar.

And if you want to see more about our designs, please visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/.

Read More..