Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival 2016

This time last year we were preparing for the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival in St Michaels, MD, on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. Then Hurricane Joaquin was born in the Caribbean, with the track forecast to run right up Chesapeake Bay as a very intense storm . The event was cancelled for the first time in it's more than 30 year history. the storm turned off into the Atlantic Ocean but still dumped a tremendous amount of rain over the Mid-Atlantic states for most of the weekend.

This is a camping and boating event, so many inches of rain would have created massive problems for organisers and participants. I was to be the Saturday night dinner speaker at that event. Everything was put on hold for a year and the organisers have hit the restart button, picking up where they left off last year. It will happen on 1st and 2nd October 2016.

For those who are interested, I will be there and will be sailing my Paper Jet prototype. Anyone who would like to experience sailing a skiff like this will be welcome to take her for a sail as well. Note that a boat like this is not for novices, you will need to have reasonable sailing skills to sail her.

Sailing my Paper Jet with the big rig and trapeze. We can depower by using the
smaller sloop rig, depending on wind strength and the skill of the sailors.

My presentation at the Saturday night dinner will be a discussion about my designs, illustrated with PowerPoint slides. It will include the amazing open boat circumnavigation that was made by Anthony Steward in a custom 19 footer based on one of my little trail-sailer designs.

Hope to see you at the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival.

Didi 26 Opportunity

Al Beyers was building his Didi 26 in Canada. It was to be for his own use for leisure sailing and sail training. Al succumbed to cancer before he completed the boat. The lady who inherited Al's boat needs to sell it urgently and is now offering it at a price that is well below the material cost. This is a great opportunity to acquire a fast trailer-sailer that has already had most of the building work done. I haven't seen her myself but she appears to have been nicely built.

She is slightly modified from our standard design, with the addition of a sugar scoop to the stern, water ballast tanks and tube for a below-decks retractable bowsprit. She still needs finishing trims for the woodwork to be completed and includes keel foil, rudder, unfinished ballast bulb, chemical toilet and trailer. She still needs rig, sails and hardware. More recent photos are available from the seller if you have serious interest in buying her.

Clean modern hull with high performance potential.

The bowsprit launch tube is non-standard but a practical solution.

Bow view. The cabin front end is a non-standard.

Sugar scoop stern with cut-out for transom-hung rudder.

Large racing cockpit

Inlay in cabin sole.

Quarter berths and companion ladder.

Lead ballast bulb halves.

Keel foil.

Forward berth.

On her trailer.

Her price is CAD5500. She can't be built to this stage for that price, so appears to offer a new owner a fast leg-up on getting a Didi 26 onto the water.

As usual, purchase of a boat like this should not be concluded without an in-depth inspection by an experienced boatbuilder or surveyor.

Contact me by email if you wan to follow up about this boat and I will put you in contact with the owner.

Dudley Dix