Finishing Details in Sportfisherman Cockpit

Kevin Agee has has been working on bringing the surface finishes in the cockpit up to a high standard and is nearly ready for the prime coats that will receive the final finish coat. Lots of fairing and sanding involved, worth the effort in achieving a quality boat. The flush deck hatches have been completed, aside from routing as needed for the flush hinges and catches, then painting and fitting the compressible seals that will make them watertight.

Meanwhile I was busy at the aft end of the cockpit, cutting the scuppers to drain water from the cockpit. These openings fit very neatly between the top of the deck in the cockpit and the underside of the wings each side of the outboard motor bracket, at the outer corners of the transom. With that work completed, I have started on the base structure that will support the insulated fish box that will span most of the width of the cockpit against the transom.

Completed covers for the flush hatches in the cockpit sole. Those aren't handles in the middle of each cover, they are stiffeners to reduce flexing underfoot.

Final layer of high build epoxy on the hull, waiting to be sanded.

The orange colour is a guide coat of food colouring in solvent, applied by cloth. Sanding off this very thin coat high-lights any dents or holes that need filling because they remain orange in an otherwise white surface. The flush cockpit hatch covers are in position but not installed, to reduce our chances of falling into the openings.

Inside view of the start of the cockpit scuppers, cut with a 76mm (3") diameter holesaw.

Same stage, viewed from outside. The trim-tab actuator will fit between the scupper and the side of the outboard motor bracket.

Completed scupper, from inside.

Same stage, from outside. The scuppers fit in neatly below the wings of the outboard motor bracket and will be almost invisible from outside.

Roughing-in the base under the insulated fish box. The fish box will span the unpainted width of the transom, flanked by lockers with hinged doors for access to the valves below. The outer ends are open for water flow to the scuppers, which will be hidden in the toe-kick recess below the fish box.

By next weekend Kevin will have completed the sanding. I will finish roughing-in the fish box, then we will move on to the foredeck and sidedeck construction.

This boat won't go onto our website until this prototype is near to completion. Until then, see our other designs on our desktop website or our mobile website.

Why Would Anyone Build a Boat?

Why would anyone build a boat? What kind of question is that for a boat designer to ask? I ask it because there are so many people who ask it in all seriousness. They ask it because they really can't understand why anybody would build a boat instead of buying one. There are so many boats out there that are available and can be acquired with so much less effort, new boats, good used boats, boats that have been damaged in weather events, tired boats that can be rejuvenated and almost dead boats that can be resuscitated.

There is no single answer to that question, there are many reasons why people build boats for themselves and each builder no doubt has a bunch of these reasons rolled up inside whatever it is that drives him to build his boat.

A reason that is common to all of the builders is passion. They have a passion to create a boat, to create something that would never have existed were it not for them and their desire to do this. Having been there myself many times, I can attest to the fantastic feelings that flood through when we first put that new boat into the water and then to give it life by hoisting sail or opening the throttle for the first time. If you think about how wonderful you felt when you first used a new boat that you had bought, doing the same in a boat that you have created with your own hands intensifies those feelings in ways that can't be described.

Petr Muzik built his Shearwater 39 then circumnavigated in his 70's.

It is that passion that also drives many of the decisions that are made during the build project. It drives them to do quality work because they want to feel pride in the final product. They want their creation to show well when seen by others, to be seen as a thing of beauty. Those who have never thought to build a boat themselves look at it and say "Wow, did you build that?".

Financial restraints are behind many amateur boatbuilding projects. If you need or want a new (as in not pre-owned) boat that costs double the money that you can afford to put into it, then the only route to get it is to build it yourself. I have never calculated ahead of my boatbuilding projects how much they are going to cost. Each time I have just dived right in and started, then kept going to the end. That was when I found out what the total cost was and was able to compare with what it would have cost me to buy an equivalent new pop-out production boat. Each time the cost of my fully-equipped boat was around 45% of the cost of a base-package for a production boat of similar size and concept.

Those who don't get it say "It cost you a lot more, you haven't priced in your labour hours, which must be priced at your professional rate of pay". No, we don't price our labour into the project and no, we should not price it at the rate that we receive in our paying jobs, whatever they may be. The project serves as a hobby, as recreation that helps us to recover from a tough week working for someone else. It helps to keep us motivated and able to take on the world. The alternative of working very extended hours at our paying jobs to generate the funds to pay someone else to build our boat brings with it a risk of getting burned out in the process.

Andrew Morkel built his Argie 15. Now he and his family are learning to sail in it.

Many people who build big boats for long distance cruising want to build it themselves to give them confidence in the strength of the boat. They know that they will be sailing their boat on very remote waters, far from rescue services and possibly with their beloved family aboard. The safety of all depends on the quality of the build and they don't want to leave that to people whom they don't know. They have vested interest in doing everything in the best manner possible, so they want to do it themselves. In the process they garner the side benefit of knowing intimately how the boat works, where all of the important parts are, how to get to every seacock or filter in a hurry when dictated by some emergency that may develop onboard. They know exactly how to repair everything onboard because they installed it in the first place. They are likely to lay out all aspects in a very sensible and logical manner because they will have to maintain it themselves. At sea in a storm is not the best time to be trying to track down plumbing or electrical faults in systems that are overly obscure because the person who installed them before the hull liners or lockers were installed didn't consider the problems of working on them in the completed boat.

Others build their own boats because they want something different,  a boat that will stand out from the crowd on marinas, at sea and in distant anchorages. They add personal styling features to fit their own characters and they choose joinery detailing such as is not available from production boatbuilders.

Sergey Federov built his Hout Bay 33 to a very high standard.

Some people choose to build a boat purely for the hobby benefit. They enjoy the build more than using the boat, so the project will be drawn out interminably. They produce exceptional quality in the process but will probably sell the boat when completed or soon after.

It has been said many times that the happiest days of a boatowner's life are when he buys and when he sells the boat. The exception to that cliche is the boatowner who has built his boat himself. There is so much of the builder wrapped up in that boat, in the form of blood, sweat and tears, to say nothing of chunks of skin and body hair, that he and the boat have an affinity and  intimacy that is unknown to those who buy their boats. I have felt very sad when selling each of the boats that I have built, far from the happiest days of my life.

It has also been said many times that boatbuilding is a disease and when you have had it, you will experience periodic relapses. I have to agree with this one, I have had numerous relapses. I can't say that I have suffered relapses, as would apply to most diseases, I have enjoyed those relapses too much to convince my wife that I have suffered in any way. And this is the way that most amateur boatbuilders feel. Visit any of the many boat shows that cater for amateur boatbuilders and you will see for yourself how much they love what they do and just how much passion they build into their projects.

To see our range of designs, for amateur or professional boatbuilding, please go to http://dixdesign.com.

Amateur Boatbuilders

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
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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