Flying Cloud,in Chapmans Bay heading home to Hout Bay and the HBYC marina.
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Flying Cloud in Chapmans Bay,Cape Town,Heritage Day,September 2003
Launch day,17th January 2000,I need to thank all my helpers,my dad Robert H McBride took the photos.
Up and away,the day after we fitted the keel,epoxied and bonded and bolted tight,so it will never leak,nine years on,its still leak proof. I must say thanks to my good friend John Holmes,thats him standing high up on the back of the boat,thanks John for the assitance you gave me over the two days we took to fit the keel and launch the boat.
This boat was different,it was the first Dix 43 built in wood/epoxy,all others having been steel,there may have been alloy ones built too? From my side I knew that building with an unfriendly material such as metal was never going to suit what I wanted to do,so after dicussion with the designer,Dudley Dix,I took over a set of steel boat plans but lofted a wood/epoxy hull instead,Dudley later re designed the keel and rudder to suit the new material.The build went well,it required extra pairs of hands to handle and raise the plywood bulkheads but once past that I built alone,its faster in some ways,you do not have to discuss what you want with a third party!The hull took me just six weeks building time,thats an eight hour day and a six day week,so 288 hours total only,I did have extra hands doing sanding and cleaning up work but never on a regular basis,just casual workers.Cost wise you can not build a boat like this in metal as low priced as managed in wood/epoxy,I followed Dudleys lead when he built his Black Cat,a Didi 38,it came in on budget,on time and did two Cape to Rio races after that.
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