Progress at D & W Boat Works

A general veiw from behind.


A neat position for the boats instruments,easy to see and safe from harm.


NKE Autopilot fitting.

D stands for Dave and W for wendy,they are putting one of our Didi Mini Transat kits together out in Arizona,USA.I have lifted their words and pictures from their own web site at http://www.dandwboatworks.com/

I got the aft railings all welded together this week, thanks John. And started to fit them to the boat, when..... I also mounted the A/P ram to the deck & painted the area above the main hatch where I removed the panel and filled the holes. Also painted the filled holes in the deck from the old rails and track. So I was fitting the aft rails when I took a break and was looking at some of photos of the Minis finishing up the 1st leg of the Transat, when I saw how one of the boats had done their aft rails. Much lighter and simpler. So I cut up the rest of the leftover aluminum tubing and will see if John can weld these up. Wendy says I can not look at any more pictures of Minis until I get mine finished!
13 & 14 Sep 09. This & that.
Finished all the bits for mounting the rudder position sensor. Added fillets for the panel stop blocks & sanded area to ready for painting. Drilled holes for the A/P ram mount through the deck and made up a backing plate and epoxied it in place. Figured out where all the A/P box, interface boxes & AIS receiver will mount. Made up stringers to screw all that stuff in to and prepped the area for gluing.
07, 08 & 09 Sep 09. Instrument panel version 4, revision 2?
So I started with a new panel idea by mounting the instruments from the back. All well and good, except that after cutting the holes there would not be enough panel left too stay together. I must be getting a bit smarter as I used a piece of scrap 1st. So I tried to mount some stringers but I was not having any luck cutting the angles needed. So then I went back to the original panel and trimmed some off the top and bottom and moved the hinge up. All was fine until I attached the hinge and then it interfered with the hatch again. Arrrg! So I cut a rabbit for the hinge and it then fit. Epoxied the stop blocks in place.