Kits for our Plywood Boats

Kits for our plywood boats have been available in USA for more than 10 years. This has had mixed success, depending on who was cutting the kits. Following on the sale of the company that had the rights to cut our kits, the quality of service deteriorated to a level that was no longer tolerable, so I rescinded the cutting rights. That brought us to the current arrangement of marketing the kits ourselves and sub-contracting the cutting to Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis.

This has worked out very well. The quality of the kits supplied to date has been excellent and the shipping has been both economically priced and efficient. They have cut numerous dinghy kits, including the Dixi Dinghy  and the Paper Jet.

Plywood Dixi Dinghy, fun little 3:1 dinghy to row/motor/sail.

The are currently preparing to cut a large kit, comprising 61 sheets of plywood, for a Didi 950 that will be shipped to a builder in Ohio. This is a radius chine plywood boat with topside chine that is designed to the Class 950 Rule and makes a very nice fast cruiser, in addition to its primary racing purpose.

3D image of radius chine plywood Didi 950

We have also sent them an order for a smaller but nevertheless substantial kit. This is for a Didi 29 Retro that will be shipped to a builder in North Carolina.This is also a radius chine plywood boat but without the topside chine. It is a development, in classic image, from our popular Didi 26 trailer-sailer design and will be rigged with the cruising rig option of the two gaff rigs that we supply with the design.

3D image of radius chine plywood Didi 29 Retro

I have reworked the panel files for these large kits so that all parts that are larger than a sheet of plywood are jointed with jigsaw joints. These joints are easy to assemble and produce very accurate panels.  Click to read about jigsaw joints.

The range of plywood kits that we can offer in USA is expanding fast. Click to see the full list. If there is a plywood design for which you want a kit, please email Dudley and ask for a price. It may take a week or two to rework the panel files to suit the Chesapeake Light Craft format then get a price for the kit but we will get that info to you as speedily as we can.

If you are outside of the USA, you can still order one of our kits from our suppliers in other countries .

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

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Plywood kits for Canada

I have good news for our supporters in Canada who would like to build one of our plywood boats. We have appointed a supplier in Nova Scotia, who will be able to supply kits for our designs. They will be cut in Nova Scotia and shipped to to wherever needed. The new kit supplier is Big Pond Boat Shop, located in Mahone Bay. Owner Keith Nelder is South African, like me, but left there long before I did. He and his shop will be available to supply kits for any of our range of plywood kits.

The first kit on offer will be for the Paper Jet. This is a versatile training boat for juniors than can be progressively upgraded from a very simple and basic Lite version with free-standing una rig that is forgiving of errors, through a sloop version to a powerful high-performance Turbo version that can be very exciting and challenging to sail.

This is all done by exchanging rig components rather than replacing the boat, so is an economical route for upgrading. It has the added advantage that when there is too much wind for the big rig, it is quick and easy to depower down to a smaller rig to suit the conditions. That extends the use of the boat into a very wide range of conditions so that it spends more time on the water instead of lying on the shore waiting for the right breeze.

Rigs and layout of Paper Jet

All of the rigs shown above use the same mast up to the hounds and the same boom. Above the hounds two different topmast lengths allow changes in overall mast height to suit the mainsail that will be used, the topmasts sliding into a socket at the top of the lower mast. The una rig has the mast free-standing in the forward mast partners and the others have it stayed in the aft partners. I also intend to add a junior mainsail option, which will have a very short topmast and be more suited to smaller juniors.

For more info and photos go to http://dixdesign.com/paperjet.htm.
To see our full range of designs, go to http://dixdesign.com/ .

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