Banque Populaire 3 the worlds fastest sailing boat

This magnifficent craft has raised the bar to all who follow,she now has the transatlantic crossing record,in which she did 908 nm in 24 hours,thats 37.8 knots average,plus hit top speed over 47 knots,the thing is she did it and can do it again,at last they know how to make these boats stick together.

Classe Mini boat number 693 a Didi Mini Transat

Dave and Wendy are building one of our Didi Mini Transat kits out in Arizona,USA,we also supplied the alloy keel,lead ballast and alloy tiller assembly,Dave has reached the fitting out stage and is installing an NKE autopilot.



30 & 31 Aug & 01 & 02 Sep 09. Looks good, well not so fast there.
Worked on a bunch of little things. Mounted the pump reservoir. Made a spacer block for the ram. Attached the ram pivot point to the tiller. Figured out how to mount the rudder position unit. Made a block and epoxied it in place for the compass sensor. Cut the holes for the A/P head & RockBox. The RockBox is a battery powered unit and I did not think that changing the batteries at sea would have a good result. So the good guys at Detroit City Marine made up a 12vdc power supply, thanks Chris. I just had to install a connector to the back of the RockBox. All was going well, I had sealed the edges of the panel and screwed it in place. Then I mounted the nke A/P head and RockBox in place. It looked great and they could be seen anywhere in the cockpit. Then I closed the hatch, or at least tried to close it. The heads stick out a bit too far and will not allow the hatch to close. Shit! Back to the drawing board.

Pilgrim,a new John Welsford design

Designed in New Zealand




This looks like a small boat but at 5 meters long it is anything but that,a perfect size to trailer sail and with a drop keel,you can launch in shallow water too.We will be supplying plans,materials and a kit,some words from John:

Pilgrim

Family daysailer or adventure cruiser.


Length. 5.00m 16 ft 5in
Beam 2.11m 7 ft
Draft Centerboard up. 0.48m 1ft 7in
Centerboard down. 1.17m 3 ft 10in
Sail area 15.1 sq m 162 sq ft
Dry Weight Rigged 480kg 1056 lbs
Ballast 210 kg 462 lbs

In my teenage years I sailed an 18 ft gaff rigged centreboard yacht around the Hauraki Gulf near my home just north of Auckland New Zealand. This is a wonderful area for cruising a small yacht with harbours every few miles, islands and peninsulas to shelter behind and thousands of square miles of beautiful warm blue water.

That was 40 plus years ago, and its been a while since I had a chance to revisit some of those coves and bays. Recently the thought that I should plan a “Pilgrimage” to refresh the memories came to the fore and I began a project that would see me in the same area in a boat of similar character to the one I sailed all those years ago.

Davids Didi mini transat build pictures

David is working nice and clean on his build,check out the floors,spotless!



The next stage will be to laminate the radius chine,thats slower than doing the flat hull skins but a very nice job to do as each plank is closing you hull skin off.


This is the drop keel casing,its part hidden inside the boat as part of the interior when fitted.

David is in Australia,he hs been working on one of our kits,its a cruise version which uses the drop keel concept from the Didi 26,in this case we supplied the drop keel foil and lead ballast halves too.

American White Oak now in stock,

With the Rand becoming stronger we find that imported timbers and ply are becoming cheaper,which when these lower prices are passed on to our customers,makes our kits lower priced,we have some quality clear Oregon Pine on order and a batch of quality white american oak has just arrived,its stunning quality,good widths and the length is great too,11ft to 12ft (3.35mtr to 3.65mtr) and full sawn to give you
a full 1" (25mm) thickness when planed in a thicknesser.A good end use will be for solid oak furniture or flooring?

Austin seven

left click the picture to view full screen.

Picture is copyright to Notty.

Seen here at an august bank holiday in England,this wonderfull micro car defies its age and still looks (to me) stunning,just check all its features,side vents,forward opening window,slide sun roof (?)we may see a similar toy car follow our Toylander kit cars.