Didi 950 Project in Australia

Fred Grimminck has been building a Didi 950 in Australia for a few years. His project is nearing completion and the boat will be launched soon. Fred sent me these photos of his boat on a trailer, ready for transport to the launch site. He has built his boat as a fast cruiser, so it has been fitted out more heavily than one built for racing. This design was drawn to the Class 950 box rule and is built from plywood using our radius chine plywood method, with a topside chine to increase power-reaching performance. Fred has built her with the lifting keep option.

Didi 950 "Without Equal" looking forward to feeling salt water for the first time.

"Without Equal" and her new spars, ready to be stepped.

To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Didi 950 Ohio Project Update

It has been awhile since I last updated about the Didi 950 amateur builds happening on opposite sides of the world. I was reminded last week by a reader that there are folks out there waiting to see more.

Both boats are progressing at a good rate and both should be launched this year. The boat of Fred Grimminck in Australia, the lifting keel version built from scratch, is nearly complete and should be launched in a few months. Mike Vermeersch in USA hopes to launch his fixed keel version, built from a kit that we supplied, on the Great Lakes in the summer.

Both are building their boats primarily for cruising, so are fitting them out for comfort more than trying to achieve minimum weight. In this post I will include photos of Mike's fixed keel boat and my next post will feature Fred's lifting keel boat.

I wrote last year about Mike's keel that was being built by Howdy Bailey. It was in progress at the time so I didn't include pics of the completed keel, which are shown in these photos.


Pre-formed side plate being plug-welded to the internal tube structure.



Ballast bulb ready for fitting to keel foil.

Keel and bulb mated, faired and primed, ready to be shipped to the builder.

The keel will be bolted to a substantial steel weldment that is inside the hull and bolted to glass-reinforced eggcrate backbones and bulkheads, with the hull skin (also glass-reinforced) sandwiched between the top of the keel and the internal steelwork. That steel weldment does double-duty, serving also as the engine beds.

Engine beds snug between the longitudinal and transverse structural members.

Engine mounted on beds. The keel bolt holes can be seen under the engine.

The engine of this version is located under the galley central counter. It will have large access panels all round for engine work and for access to the keel bolts. Some people object to this engine location, saying that the motor is too smelly to put in the middle of the accommodation. Not so, all of my personal boats have had the motors in this position and I would not want it anywhere else. It makes the engine easy to work on and to keep clean, giving a boat that always smells fresh. A big reason why under-cockpit motors are smelly is that they are so difficult to work on and clean that they tend to be neglected. This location also places the motor close to the centre of pitching, so is good for performance in lumpy water.

U-shape galley being built. The engine is under the counter on the right, cooker to the left.

Epoxy-coated plywood icebox.

Icebox installed and foam insulation poured, ready for trimming.

The rest of the interior is also progressing.

Saloon, looking forward. As designed the settees are water tanks but Mike is installing plastic tanks elsewhere.

Looking down at the top of a water ballast tank, with watertight access covers.

Mike is doing a very neat build. This is partly due to building from a pre-cut kit but most of it is due to him having very neat working habits. I consider my own woodworking to be neat but Mike makes my work look a bit tatty in comparison. It is always worthwhile to keep the build area free of scraps, shavings, dust, tools etc for the sake of safety but also to make it easier to work with glue, epoxy coatings, paint etc without messing up both the tools and your workmanship.

 

An important aspect that many builders ignore is to round off all salient corners, whether they will be seen or not. It only needs a minute or two to run each timber through a router with 6mm radius bit, leaving soft corners that hold coatings well and won't damage your hands, knees and feet. Neglect this step and you will have an interior that looks amateurish and will also damage you when you fall against it. This small detail will make the world of difference to the final look of your new boat, helping to make it something of which you can justifiable be proud. 



Watch for my next post in a day or two to see Fred's lifting keel Didi 950.

To see our full range of designs, please go to http://dixdesign.com/ on your computer or to http://dixdesign.com/mobile on your mobile.

Didi 950 Keel Build by Howdy Bailey

Howdy Bailey Yacht Services in Norfolk, Virginia, is building the keel for the Didi 950 project in Ohio. This one has a fixed keel that is supported by a steel box on the inside of the hull and which is bolted to the grid structure. The box also forms the engine beds, to concentrate these major weights in a tight area for low pitching characteristics in lumpy water.

Howdy and his staff are doing a masterful job of building this keel, which is assembled over a rigid skeleton of schedule pipes between end plates. The side plates are wrapped over the skeleton and plug welded.

One of Howdy's staff welding the keel structure.

Completed keel skeleton with pre-formed side plates awaiting fitting.

Same stage, looking at the top plate.

The tubular internal skeleton, instead of transverse plate spacers, has multiple benefits. The pipes make the skeleton very rigid to resist twisting when fitting the side plates, they have soft surfaces to minimise hard spots that can distort the side plates, they present broad surfaces for plug welding the side plates and they serve as efficient heat sinks to draw heat away from the plug welds, minimising heat distortion.

The keel bolts bear on the keel box inside the hull, sandwiching the hull skin between the the two. Howdy Bailey Yacht Services fabricated the box as well, then shipped it to the builder. He has test-fitted the Beta 15hp motor on the beds ahead of installing the box into the boat. The following photos show the box with engine standing on the integral engine beds.

Didi 950 keel support box front view.

Beta 15 being test-fitted on the engine beds.

Aft view. The holes are for shaft, exhaust and ventilation.

Finding a suitably qualified engineering company to make the keel is often a worry for people considering building an offshore boat. Howdy and his staff have the experience and are available for this work.

To see more of our designs, visit our website at http://dixdesign.com/.

Didi 950 - Up and Over

This seems to be a period of hull-turning. About 10 days ago I posted about the Didi 26 being turned in Hood River, OR. Now I am doing the same for Mike Vermeersch's  Didi 950 in Ohio.

Mike turned his hull this weekend and it went very smoothly and safely. It is a much bigger boat, with more weight that can potentially get out of control and more height needed to successfully accommodate the hull on its side as it goes through the process. Bigger and heavier boats need more care, preparation and equipment than is the case with smaller boats.

Mike chose to turn it using the spit-roast method. This is only one of many methods that I describe in my book "Shaped by Wind & Wave".

Turning by this method is done by attaching axles to both ends of the hull to suspend it on supports (Mike used engine hoists) while it is rotated on the axles. Care must be taken to get the axles on centreline and close to the vertical centre of gravity of the hull, to keep the rotational forces small. In this case Mike asked me for the position of the VCG, which he says proved to be spot-on. Once lifted, he turned it by himself, exerting about 20lb of force to rotate the hull. These photos tell the story.

Spit-roast axles ready to be fitted.

Axle bolted to transom.

Axle bolted to bow.

Axle in chain sling attached to boom of engine hoist.

Lifted on engine hoists and turn started.

Almost over.

Cradle ready for the hull, on castors for easy moving.

Safely settled in her new cradle and ready for interior work.

Thanks Mike Vermeersch for the great photo series.

To see more of this and our other designs, please visit. http://dixdesign.com/