Flying Clouds third birthday party,with friends Oscar,Errol,Cheryl,Jean,thats the boats designer Dudley Dix in the grey top and enjoying a Castle beer.
Flying Cloud,sailing on Chapmans Bay.
The boat was moved to the HBYC boat park for final fitting out inside.
Fitting the laminated chine takes longer but its soon done,giving a fair and very strong hull construction.
Work wise,this Dix 43 took me (one man) just six weeks to build the hull,Radius chine construction allows a fast build time due to those large sheets of plys you can see,in a couple of days half the hulls side plating can be fitted.
I am told that the last great depression back in the 1930s,was the start of the kit boat building phase,its hardley stopped all these years and with a very good March month nearly behind us,it seems to be holding true to the idea that when things are tough,its time to do it yourself,which for a similar reason was what I myself did some years back.Wanting a new boat,I costed a set of mouldings to the Shearwater 39 design in GRP,my cost was the actual materials and labour input,plus R5000 mark up to Eric Bongers who then owned the mouldings,the sum I would have to pay was R134,000,which was a lot of money back then (it still is) so I looked in a different direction,I asked Dudley dix for a set of his study plans to his much larger design the Dix 43,then costed basic materials in plys and epoxies to R41,000 only and as they say 'Got the Show On the Road' it was a start in wood/epoxy boat building that still exists for me today,the hidden element is you have to do it yourself,there is nothing wrong with that?
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