Diesel Duck 38 traditional build

At a kit price around R120,000,thats about U$15,000 right now,this is still one heck of a kit package,we supply all the frames pre made,you need to pay George for his plans too.

The bottom line with this build is commitment,do you have what it takes,can you build it,I did. Miss Pickles was built around ten years back,with its International Paints protecting it,the finish is still tops.

How hard can this be?

R McB

http://dieselducks.com/Duck38study.html this is the link for the Diesel Duck

When asked last week to survey a yacht,I was questioned if I was able to do such a job,qualified was one word mentioned? Boat survey is one of the tasks I get from time to time,its rare not to cover the survey fee (not cheap)remember your paying for what has been learned over many years of working on and building boats,three transatlantics and thousands of sea miles,I always find some item of interest,one was no oil on the dipstick in an engine,what money did that save?

Left click the pictures to view full size and see more detail.

Hauled 18 months later after she was a bit knocked about on the marina in False Bay,no sign of leaks anyplace.

False Bay Yacht Club.

A very traditional boat on the inside but clad with two layers of ply and epoxy,we turned her into a more modern build.
Launched Miss Pickles weighed six tons,she then needed five tons of internal ballast.



The size of the laminated timber keel means we make it in sections,then removed it to the actual building shed for assembly.

Laying a keel in parts in the workshops.

Oppikat,a great small cat for you to build

News just in from yacht designer Dudley Dix:

Years ago Neels Lund of Nebe Boats commissioned a catamaran intended for children to sail. He was going to make moulds then build it as a GRP production boat. I designed the Oppikat for Neels but his company closed its doors before he even started building the moulds.

Over the years since then we have sold a few sets of plans for it but I have never received any photos of completed boats until recently. Frank Nagel in Berlin, Germany, has completed one for his children and has started to send me sailing photos.

Frank's newly completed Oppikat

Frank has two sons. Johnny is 7 and sails with Frank aboard for safety. Vincent is 11 and weighs 33kg. He sails their Oppikat by himself in breezes up to Force 3. Frank says that he also sails it himself with both sons aboard in up to Force 7. The 120kg total weight is a bit much for the little 9ft cat but it is good to know that she can take it.

Words and pictures are from the www.dixdesign.com web site and Dudleys own blog,many thanks.

R McB

The cruises of Ocean Cloud,a short history.

Gulliver of Knysna by name was no more,she sailed on as Ocean Cloud,a name change and a hull line colour change too.I had seen her being launched at the RCYC,in many ways a sister ship to French Connection,one of the better Endurance 37 ever seen.

Gulliver of Knysna was on a trip from Knysna to Cape Town,four days into that trip she was rolled over just past the Cape Point light seen in the picture above,the next light house was Slangkop,its was right there she was rolled in the black of night.

This was not as I found and bought her,she was well out to sea and in the surf at low tide,I took the view she could be saved if I could get a crane?

The story of the sea resucue of Gullivers four male crew was well writen about,the painting of the rescue is to be found in Station Eights club room.

A week later she was mine,I had the job to repair the rather (very) large hole on the port side,it was closed one week later,then the refit started.

Fifty one weeks after she was taken from the rocks,we re launched the boat and named her Ocean Cloud.We used our marina berth at Cape Towns RCYC and sailed of a year or so later on a day like this.

Brasil was exciting,so was Fernando Noranja,Lorna climbed Pico with friends,we were at anchor not far from the bays below.

Next was Brasils Athol das Rocas,a wonderfull over night stop on a coral island in the middle of the South Atlantic,there are no persons living on the isalnd.

Our stop at Venzuelas Mochima is a highlight of my cruising life,its one of those places we are supposed to visit,we did!

This picture says it all,there is hardly need for words,we are at the end of a days cruise,the bay is Punta Pargo and our last nights stay in Venezuela before and eventual and eventfull trip to Tinidads Port of Spain the following day.

How hard can this be?

R McB

Gulliver of Knysna

Note: This tale had a happy ending thanks to those who serve Hout Bays Station 8 NSRI,they are still doing this on a daily basis,24/7 and 365 days of the year,my thanks to you all.

Gulliver of Knysna lived on to sail once more,I launched her again fifty one (51) weeks later and in our own Hout Bay Harbour,her new name is Ocean Cloud,she is in False Bay at FBYC last I saw.(december 2010)

With friends I took her to Salvador,Bahia, Brasil,thats Notty,Sam his daughter and a mutual friend of us all,John Holmes,that was a brilliant cruise,highly memorable and we still have the VHS tape to proove it.

Later and with my family aboard,we cruised north as far as Tobago,then on to Venezuela,finally leaving the boat in Trinidads TTYA for some eight months. After which Sam (simone) and Nigel, sailed back to Cape Town with the boat.


The decision to buy a wreck of a yacht on the rocks at Slangkop was a decision made on the spot, when I took a gamble I could save the boat if a crane could be found,it started with me paying for the boat where she lay,which was far out in the surf,then looking for my friend Ronnie,who ran a crane hire company,I found him at the 19th hole at Green Points Metropolitan Golf Club,with help from Ronnie finding Dennis Gentry and Tandem Rigging,the rest just happened but it was never easy.

Party time!


With a ladder set up it was great to be able to walk around Gullivers teak decks,it had been a long week but success was ours.


Now in Hout Bay and after the crane had off loaded Gulliver,the crew came too by our request,while we were working Jean my wife had prepared some party food and drinks as a way of saying thank you.

Left click any picture to view full screen size.

Loaded,its time to head home for Hout Bay and across Chapmans Peak Drive coastal road,that was an adventure all of its own,with cars coming from the city and our rig needing the full width of the road most of the time.

Gulliver goes skywards to be loaded on to a low bed trailer which had already been loaded with an Endurance 37 cradle I knew about in Cape Town harbour.

The crew,what a great bunch of guys,they worked around the clock to save what was now my boat.

Dennis Gentry,CEO of Tandem Rigging facing the camera.

The view of the scene from a road high up on the hill.

The first Endurance 37 we had built and owned,sailed back from Brasil, had been sold some months before this event took place,it was a very bad north wester, when one dark night, Gulliver of Knysna on passage from Knysna to Cape Town, got too close to the shore and was turned over by a breaking wave,the story of an amazing NSRI Station 8 rescue of the yachts four crew, is well documented in a story I wrote and had published in Duckworths Magazine (on line),the pictures are scanned from by now old prints and negs, were taken with a Canon FT 35mm camera and a 1.4 x 50mm lens
R McBride pics.





A few days after she went aground,we got a rough terrain crane large enough to haul her free of the rocks,then it was another but larger crane to load her with a boom long enough to lift her off the same rocks,it took the best part of a working week,Dennis from Tandem Rigging told me later,it was the only job he made any money on that year,I have say he and his crew who camped on site to work with the tides, sure earned their pay!The boat was by this stage a bare hull and deck unit,the boat had been stripped by Charles, who had bought her in the surf from the insurance company,I in turn bought the wreck from Charles.

Bendable Plywoods

With new stocks arriving this weekend,now is a good time to place your order,new distrbutors in other areas are still being accepted.

We have spare stocks in 3mm,5mm and 8mm with the grain runing in either direction.Pack lots at trade prices or retail at smaller orders.

021-790-3859 phone and fax line.

R McB

Gulliver of Knysna sea rescue by station 8 of Hout Bay

NSRI Station 8 in Hout Bay Harbour, South Africa




Front page news, the day after the storm and the loss of Gulliver of Knysna, the newspaper is the local language Die Burger.



Gulliver is washed up the rocky shore,a total wreck, to be sold as she was to Charles Copping, who stripped her with friends between the tides over the next few days, all that was then left was the boats hull and deck structure, she was then sold on and later removed with some difficulty by a team of proffesional riggers Tandem Rigging, they camped for the best part of a week to work between the tides, eventually they had the hulk close enough to the mainland to lift her clear with a large crane.



The front cover and the rescue is the main topic, the orginal painting hangs behind the NSRI refreshments bar at station 8,Hout Bay.


This story is largely unknown, excepting by the local community, plus the men and families involved,its worth a reminder that we are lucky, seriously lucky to have a sea rescue service in place in South Africa, the local station in Hout Bay, is named Station 8, here is one of their stories:


Gulliver of Knysna, a Ibold designed Endurance 37 in GRP.

A wild northwester was sending mountainous swells crashing shorewards off the southwestern Cape coast on 15 May 1986. The yacht Gulliver, en route from Knysna to Cape Town for a round-the-world trip, was making heavy weather as she headed towards Slangkop light near Kommetjie. With four persons aboard, Gulliver was heading for the sanctuary of Hout Bay when she was caught by a massive breaking wave some two nautical miles off shore.

The wave pitched and rolled the yacht, hurling the skipper overboard. Fortunately he was wearing a harness.The lighthouse keeper had picked up a distress call from the yacht and the Port Captain sent out an urgent call to the duty crew of Station 8.

Within 10 minutes, Coxwain Peter Braham and his crew were launching the eight-metre rescue boat, Spirit of Mobil, and heading for the stricken vessel.With Station Commander Ken Brady assisting from a mobile vehicle ashore, the lighthouse keeper was asked to illuminate the area where the boat had gone over by keeping the Slangkop light trained on the vessel.

Spirit of Mobil could not approach the casualty directly because of rocks between them and the yacht, so they instructed the crew to get into their liferaft and bear away from the yacht. The rescue boat came in between the breaking swells and pulled the crew aboard.

While Spirit of Mobil was heading out to sea with the casualties aboard, a massive wave broke over her. Some of the crew were knocked back against the transom. The coxwain fractured two ribs and his deputy a severe cut on the head.But the crew of Gulliver were safe and Spirit of Mobil entered Hout Bay Harbour with all lives intact.

Later the coxwain and crew were awarded the NSRI Director's Letter of Thanks for their bravery.

Jaguars and an Endurance 37

You may well wonder why this guy has an Endurance 37 sitting in his front garden,its a tale thats way overdue for the telling,shall I start soon I wonder?

How hard could that be.

R McB

Hout Bays winds

We seem to have our own weather in Hout Bay,it can really (really) blow big time and only in our area.

This is the normal other side of the weather,perfect!

My thanks to Justin Phillips who took the above picture.

This was two days back and after the dramatic rescue of Bob,a single handed yachtsman from the USA.

This is a little article on the Nsri website. Winds were 40-50 kts in the evening. I think the locals would have coped (although when you see the pic he doesn’t have an upwind yacht!). At worst he could have run for CT . . . . ah well.  http://www.nsri.org.za/2012/01/solo-yachtsman-rescued-off-hout-bay/

                               Bob Loana, aboard his yacht AKUIDO. Picture by Rob Fine.

I spoke to Bob on his boat tied up on the HBYC marina late yesterday afternoon,his praise for the assistance and skill of the people from Station 8 NSRI could not be over stated,he was he says in extreme danger given the head of his main sail had blown out.

Prior to the arrival of the gale force winds,he was having a nice sail in about 18 knots of breeze he told me,then it arrived and the trouble started.

Well done Station 8 Hout Bays NSRI!

R Mc B

KD 860 catamaran made larger,is for sale

The KD 860 in feet will be about 26.5 feet only,thats not a large boat,space wise,even if it will do what you need.

A customer bought a set of kit materials from us some while back,then a second set of  9mm marine plys,I wondered why? He took the design to 32 feet,thats much nicer.

Note,the grahics and photo are from the builders web site,he is building to re sell,please contact me for details.

 Top quality materials have been used,we know this as CKD Boats cc have supplied them.

The new boat building yard is in Pretoria,South Africa,road delivery inland or to a port can be arranged.

The boat can be bought as is for owner completion.

R Mc B

Lavranos 10.5 meter power cat,in alloy

We have changed the build materials we offer to an existing design in alloy,the idea was to
offer it in ply,the cost to re draw the plans was just too large an item,so now we will offer the boat as a CNC cut kit and in alloy.

10.5 METER POWERCAT

This Wright & Lavranos 11 powercat design is developed as a "cut file" kitset, so that the hull is CNC cut and delivered to the builder precut & labelled. She was built for a Motueka based client who uses her for a taxi service in the Marlborough Sounds, carrying twenty passengers as well as for charter fishing, with 8 passengers.

The boat has a top speed of 22 knots fully laden, and comfortably cruises at 20, with a pair of Volvo TAMD41P engines (147 KW each @ 3800 RPM), driving 560mm x 4 blade Henley’s Tiger props through a ZF 2.56 reduction gearboxes. She is an outstanding sea boat, soft-riding and with excellent wing deck clearance, and with good spray damping she is very dry.

The very large self draining cockpit provides excellent access to the motors and is equipped with a bait tank, pot hauler, bait table, rod holders, fish box, and lots of storage and seating. The shower and toilet compartment is accessed from the forward end of the cockpit. The saloon and galley area is around the helm station, and there are a pair of double cabins with berths for 6 down below. The saloon settee and table is also convertible to a double.

LENGTH OVERALL 10.500 METERS

BEAM MAXIMUM 4.550 METERS

DRAFT 1.100 METERS

There are a number of proffesional alloy boat builders in Cape Town,so pre built hull and decks may also be an option?

R McB