New Agent & Kit Supplier in Australia

We have a new agent in Australia. In future we will be represented by Ron Jesche of Stainless Boatworks in Adelaide, South Australia. Ron is an accomplished boatbuilder, working to a high standard. He is currently building a Cape Henry 21 for his own use.

Ron's current boat "Lioness" was his own build, to a custom pilothouse design. He saw a similar boat at the Wooden Boat Festival in Tasmania, which put him on the path that ended with him building "Lioness" for himself and wife "Carole".

"Lioness" on the hard recently for maintenance.

Nicely finished pilothouse of "Lioness".

Stainless Boatworks is able to sell plans for any of our range of designs, which will be printed and shipped by our office here in USA. They can also supply CNC kits for our plywood designs.

Ron Jesche's Cape Henry 21 build, fairing and deck in progress.

Interior of Ron's Cape Henry 21, showing nice detailing.

Ron does nice work. He has built the Cape Henry 21 from scratch. That has given him good knowledge of how our designs work, as well as the experience of building one of our designs. That makes him well-suited to represent our designs in Australia. Whether you want to build from plans or a kit, Ron can supply.

Also, if you want one of these boats and don't have the time or inclination to build it, maybe Ron will build one for you if you speak to him very nicely.

We look forward to a long and mutually satisfying relationship with Ron Jesche.

To see more about our boat designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Wooden Boat Festival, Port Townsend

The Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend WA ended a week ago. Two days of off-and-on light drizzle washed the smoke from the wild fires out of the air and Sunday turned into a gorgeous day with lots of visitors. There were three boat of our design on display.

The Didi Cruise-Mini "Segue" has been at the Festival many times. Her owners, David and Nancy Blessing, have become good friends of mine over the past few years and hosted me in their beautiful home in Port Ludlow. Their boat was built by the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building in Port Hadlock. The Festival gave me the opportunity to view some of the beautiful boats built by the school and also on display. I also spent a few pleasant hours in the company of Executive Director Betsy Davis and some of the many people who make this school a valuable resource of the boating community. The school may be available to build our smaller designs, up to about 21ft, but the bigger boats would not fit into the requirements of their programs.

Didi Cruise-Mini "Segue".

The Cape Henry 21 "Slough Coot" is owned by Michael and Jody Baccellieri of Portland OR. Their boat attracted an endless stream of visitors to visit aboard and talk about her. Michael and Jody had spent the previous 2 weeks cruising the beautiful islands and anchorages of Puget Sound and were very happy to chat about their capable little vessel.

Michael and Jody aboard their Cape Henry 21 "Slough Coot".

The Didi Mini Mk3 "Voodoo Child" was built by amateur Mark Paterson in Vancouver BC, to an extremely high standard that rivals the best produced by many professional boatyards. Visitors who talked to me after being aboard "Voodoo Child" all spoke of the incredible standard of finish and the many features that Mark built into his boat. She is very well-equipped, including carbon mast, boom and sprit. We took her out to sail in the Friday race, unfortunately into the worst possible conditions for a Mini 650 to show her paces. We had a boat, designed for windy downwind racing and trans-ocean passage-making, in a sometimes windless around-the-cans race where contrary current was at times faster than boat speed. I will have to sail on her another time to experience her speed in her own conditions.

Didi Mini Mk3 "Voodoo Child".

I had flown to the Pacific Northwest via Portland so that I could visit friends in that area. One was the owner of a Lotus Europa similar to my own, to help him to sort out some problems. That done, we took it for a spin on Vancouver WA roads, giving me even more appreciation for my own car, which I had resurrected from a lifeless wreck over a 5-year rebuild. Just a few more jobs to do to complete the total body-off restoration. People wonder when I walk up to this tiny car how a tall guy like me can fit into a car with the roof below waist level. The saying is that you don't get into a Lotus, you put it on like a pair of trousers, one leg at a time. 😊

The roof of my Lotus comes only to the bottom of the windows of my wife's Chev Sonic compact.  Seen here with my Ford Windstar and son-in-law's jacked SUV for contrast with my "toy" car.

To see our full range of boat designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Wooden Boat Festival, Port Townsend

That season is coming around again, time for the Wooden Boat Festival in the beautiful little Pacific Northwest town of Port Townsend, WA. This is the 41st edition of one of the most popular wooden boat events in the world, with hundreds of wooden boats on show and dozens of presentations on a wide range of subjects of interest to boating people. Dates are 8th to 10th September 2017. The festival website is not yet fully functional but that will come soon.

Among those many boats will be three of our 21ft plywood sailboats, all different, which can be visited on the docks.

David Blessing's Didi Cruise-Mini "Segue". This is the detuned cruising version of our Didi Mini single-handed trans-Atlantic raceboat.

Michael Baccellieri's Cape Henry 21, "Slough Coot". She was built with some deviations from our design but the current owner is working to get her closer to the original drawings.

Mark Paterson's Didi Mini Mk3 "Voodoo Child". This is the full racing version of our Mini-Transat racer, with the newer hull shape and rig. 

I will also be taking part in the presentations. I will participate in the Designers' Forum, along with other boat designers, moderated by Jay Benford. This is from 12h00 to 13h00 on Friday 8th in the Cascade Room. Bring your boat design and construction questions to this session and observe how diverse the range of opinions and solutions can be among designers with different backgrounds and design styles. This is normally a very interesting gathering.

I will have my own session in the Cascade Room from 09h30 to 10h30 on Sunday 10th. My presentation is titled "Surviving a Capsize on the Ocean". Nobody can guarantee who will survive an ocean capsize but this presentation is aimed at making boaters aware of the many factors that are working together to reduce their chances of escaping alive from a capsized boat. Armed with that knowledge, they will be better prepared to choose the best options if they do ever have the misfortune of being inside or under an inverted boat.

To see our range of boat designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Cape Henry 21 Trailer-Sailer Cruising

Richard Hunter lives in Czech Republic and bought himself a Cape Henry 21 that was built in UK by amateur builder Gary Wallis. He sails it mostly on Berzdorfer See in Germany. He recently towed it 1200km to Croatia with a 1.9 litre VW Transporter to cruise in the waters of Croatia. With his wife and three teenagers on the trip, they used the van and boat as overnight accommodation en-route.

Cape Henry 21 "Ruby" reaching in great sailing conditions

Once in the water, they set off with everything needed by the 5 people and cruised for a week, without having to put into harbour to stock up. Their little cruiser took it all very well, allowing them to anchor close to shore in private spots that are inaccessible to the much bigger charter boats. Their boat is quick in the conditions normal to that area in summer, even with the big load that she was carrying. They found themselves enjoying great sailing while the big charter boats went by, motoring port-to-port.

Stowage nets for stores for 5 people.

 Richard sent me a video and photos recording their holiday, as well as some nice writing about the experience. He sums it all up in a few sentences.
 
We spent five days circumnavigating Šolta. Maybe that sounds like a long time given the size of the place, but as the years pass I find myself focussing less on what I have done, and more on the doing itself. This is the opposite of bucket listing. How many hours have we spent on a really nice tack, not how much ground have we covered, we literally couldn’t care less. If we ended up only a couple of bays along the coast, so be it. To us they were new, unexplored bays, just as lovely as any other.

Tucked in close to the shore, well away from the charter crowds.

 Richard also sent a nice video to record their holiday and has shared it with us.

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Richard shows that bigger is not always better. a comfortable little boat like this can get you to many places that are inaccessible to bigger boats. It is also much more affordable to most people and can be taken home in the off-season to minimise ownership costs. A big benefit is being able to sail waters far from home without having to sail for days to get there. Instead, cruise the highways to the cruising grounds, then cruise the lakes, seas or lagoons of your choice at a relaxed pace, before cruising home again at highway speeds.

Thank you Richard Hunter.

To see our range of designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/ or http://dixdesign.com/mobile.
 

Cape Henry 21 Professional Build in Ireland

Tiernan Roe is a professional boatbuilder in County Cork, Ireland. His company, Roeboats, specialises in building quality wooden boats. Mostly of classic styling, they build for sail, power or rowing. Roeboats recently launched a Cape Henry 21 that they built for a customer from France.Tiernan sent me these photos, which show some interesting details brought into one of our most popular small cruisers.

Cape Henry 21 ready to get wet.

Launched in a pretty setting.

First sail of the new boat.

The mainsail has still to be fully set up in these photos.

Compact sink & cooker unit, neatly executed.

Other side of the galley. Nice detailing.

Looking aft from the double forward berth.

You can follow the construction of this boat on the Roeboats news blog, from start through to launch.

After launch, Tiernan Roe sent me these comments. "She sails very nicely and I found her easy to single hand from the get go. The interior is pretty snazzy with frame and panel oak fronted drawers and a gas stove with tank fed sink.  Also the centreboard was a lot easier to operate than I thought. It's an awkward shape out of the boat to try and move alone."

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