Cape Henry Wedding Chapel

 Ron Jesche built his Cape Henry 21 in the Adelaide area of Australia and does most of his sailing on Gulf St Vincent. Named "Sealion", his Cape Henry 21 fits his current needs so well that he sold his larger cruiser.

 Now, in the times of COVID restrictions on what we can and cannot do, "Sealion" has taken on a new role. This past weekend she served as wedding chapel when Ron and his long-time girlfriend were married on her foredeck. His bride's son had already had to postpone his own wedding plans once due to the pandemic, so he and his bride decided to do the same. So they had two weddings, an hour apart. Names and photos of the others in the weddings are not shown, for privacy reasons.

Ron Jesche is our agent in Australia, as well as kit supplier for our plywood designs. He is also a professional boatbuilder and fabricator of high quality stainless steel custom boat hardware. He can be contacted via his business Stainless Boatworks.

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

Dudley Interviewed by CatamaranSite

 I was interviewed by Dierdre of CatamaranSite about my design work, more particularly about my catamaran designs. This forms part of their series of interviews with catamaran designers. Click on the image below to go to the interview.

We discussed my background, catamaran designs generally in the past, present and future, my radius chine plywood cat design series, as well as where my boats are built.

If you want to know more about my multihull or monohull designs after watching the video, go to out main website or our mobile website.

Didi 40cr2 Kit at Exocetus Marine

 A few months ago I posted about the comprehensive kit being developed for the Didi 40cr2 by Exocetus Marine in UK. They are building a boat at the same time as developing the kit, to check everything for proper fit and assembly. Since my previous post the build has progressed to hull turn-over stage.

See captions under photos for explanations.

Side panel glued to hull framing.

First layer of pre-formed radius skin panels being installed.

This is how the radius skin panels are supplied in the kit, pre-formed in the Exocetus workshop.

Inside view of the radiused portion of the hull.

Second layer of radius fitted. A jigsaw joint on the side panel can also be seen.

Hardwood keel shoe, also cut by CNC. This forms a tough and flat surface onto which the keel root is bolted, removing compressive loads from the softer okoume plywood skin.

The gloss epoxy in this photo shows the fairness of the radius chine plywood hull. In the background is a Dix 470 catamaran that is also available as a kit, being built in the workshop.

High-build epoxy primer.

Outside, ready for hull-turning.

A novel way to turn a hull. I've not seen it done this way before.

The keel shoe is visible in this photo.

Steel frame on which the stern was supported during turn-over.

Turn-over completed.

The kit that Exocetus Marine is developing includes all plywood components plus all solid timber structure, pre-shaped and ready for installation. Their instruction manual is also very detailed, with interactive PDF 3D drawings that allow the builder to view in various formats and to zoom in to see finer detail.

To see our full design range, go to our main website or our mobile website.