Dan joins the SA Navy

It certainally looks that way, the Simonstown Naval Dock Yard has been made available for certain private users, thats great news and well done to the navy!

Hi All,

Thanks for all your replies.
Not too much progress on boat today today, as we are still finding our 'feet' .

Was worried about the wind, so threw a flippant remark about facilities towards the great guys at Armscor.
In 10 minutes the tractor was there and the doors started opening.......Have a look where we are now!

Now feeling even more under gunned!

There are a number of these fitting out sheds at the Simonstown Naval Dockyard, its great to see them being put to the use they were intended for.

The last time I was in this shed there was a Ton class mine sweeper in it, the planks having been removed . I was there to discuss the supply of African Mahogany to re plank the boat. The planks are special, 4.6 to 6 mtrs long, 9" in width and in 1" and 2" thicknesses. At the time I ran Commercial Lumber cc, we were said to be the only local timber company who had taken the time to visit the dockyard to discuss the various tenders.

From Maculata Gum wedges and side props, to mahogany planks for minsweepers, I went and dicussed each end use and asked about the specific tender. There was no preference in awarding tenders but at least when they were granted to Commercial Lumber cc, we could deliver to specification and on time.

All pictures supplied by Dan.

Well done on the build Dan and bravo to the SA Navy for allowing the use of the dockyard facilities!

CKD Boats cc can supply the Wharram Tiki 38 as a full or part kit ste.

Dry fitting continues.....

Moving time for Dan

This is the moment we all wait for, the only day that beats this one is the actual launch.

The weeks of planing and phone calls all come together on such a day, the skill of local crane drivers becomes vital on such a day.

With a Wharram Tiki 38, there are twice the number of moves, this may not affect the final cost on the day as often we pay a minimum call out of aroud 4 to 5 hours anyway?

A great shot of Dans Tiki 38 on the road to Simonstown Naval Base, Dan will soon be sailing in those nice warm and clean waters!

 The pictures were supplied by Dan and his friends, click on them for a larger view.

Inside the SA Navy base at Simonstown, Dans handiwork seems dwarfed by a Navy vessel.

The Tiki 38 is on a dolly, it can be moved and will be the next day, check the blog for those pictures tommorrow.

The Wharram Tiki 38 for Dan started as just the materials, then later the plys were CNC profiled and we can now offer a large part of this design as a kit. Plans are from James Wharram direct.

Regards

Roy

Warlock, the first Didi mini transat launched

This was the first Mini 650 we built, its named a Didi Mini Transat as a design name but meets the strict rules of the Classe Mini 6.5.

Photographer unknown but probably Mike ONeil of Knysna where this picture was taken.

Roy

Big Swells in Hout Bay

I suppose once you have put your name down as one who will help on the committee boat you have to do the job and so it was we went out and dropped anchor and raised the marks.

The fleet sailing up the swells

R Mc Bride pics.

Windswift is a large boat, she was less affected by the days large swells that day.

Roy

HBYC Spinnaker run

This Admirals Sword Regatta must have been around eighteen years back, possibly nineteen, so around 1993, can anyone advise?

SA 1245, the spotty boat,news just in below.

Looking at your blog – SA1245 is a Simonis 35, originally named “No Spots on Me” but Syd Kaye who owned her changed the name to “Pallucci” after his business. He has since sold the boat and I think she is now in Durban, just entered for the Vasco da Gama Race.

 Best regards

 ERIC

R McBride pictures.

Is this a Simonis 35?  ( yes )


Roy

A HBYC Admirals Sword deck crew

The signal crew were really keen, they did a great job too.

The late Mike Becket moves forward to pass a message, Mike became the HBYC Vice Commodore in later years.

There were as many Gals as Guys, it was a lumpy anchorage!

Smiling in spite of the conditions.

Mike gets ready to hoist a mark.

All pictures by Roy McBride and previously unpublished.

Roy

Racing for the sword in Hout Bay

This was one of those Admiral Sword events that some on our boat should have taken my advice, it was simple, ' please take some sea sick pills' those who did were ok, a number laughed it off and fed the fishes.

Close racing around the mark boat, we were just off The Sentinal, its ok to anchor there if not a little deep?

The boat on the left is Pure Magic, is that a Sweet Pea? the other one is a Poppa Bongers designed Bongers 39, cold moulded and in wood, she was the last such boat built? Named Ghost Dancer, she was fitted out by the late Tony Page, from a bare hull at Suikerbossie here in Hout Bay  and did some quite extensive cruising, which includes a trip to England.

The new Hout Bay marina

The move of the old HBYC marina from the position where the ABC now is, was one of members voting with their hands, at one marina meeting, an old codger was very insistant that the marina must be self funding and never cause stress to the main clubs finances in any posible way.

Photo by R McBride, using a Canon FT film camera.

Janet, who is now twenty nine, checks out  new dock space, was this in 1991?

The guys feelings were understood and it was made clear the marina section would and will be self funding, nothings changed. The new marina was mainly sold by the one man marina committee and under the direction of one Arthur Vink, a one man committee can work really well and Arthur sold all the new marinas, this one with an Endurance 37 on it was one of the last to sell.

A one man committee, how hard can his be.

Roy

Warlock Racing, the prize was in the news

Friday, May 30th 2003.

The local rag The Sentinal, published a nice news item on the prize giving (its Dudley Dix,not Dicks) there was much excitement, then 50% of the team was sent to Belgium.

Click the picture, it should enlarge.

Later Shane was to kick start the idea once more, when new crew came on board.

Roy, Shane, Ruben, Dudley.

Warlock Racing, the boat kit award

A little yachting history (May 2003)

Some years back Mike decided to try and kick start the then new to South Africa Mini Transat 650 by offering a part boat kit to who ever came up with the best idea to race such a boat in SA. The prize was to be the plans and a part materials kit to a Didi Mini Transat.

Click the picture to make it larger.

I was not totaly convinced that the magazine who posted the news of the competition, or the readers took the very valuable offer seriously? Mike took the email entries and made his own decision as to who were the winners, neither Dudley Dix or myself ever knew how many entries were received or why Mike chose the joint entry as he did?

The kit was based on the Didi Mini Transat , a design made to be class legal in the Mini 650 races world wide.

Ruben Donne and Shane Elliot were the winners, I knew Shane and had met Ruben once, Mike was not aware of this, so his final decision was not swayed in anyway.

Did Mike make the right decision? well we may never know who were the other entries, the prize was given at our Paaren Eiland factory in Gray Street and we then had to wait to see what they made of the fact they were the winners.

It was not to be and the team were soon to be broken up,as Ruben had to return with his parents to their home in Belgium, leaving Shane on his own to sort out the building. For some years nothing happened, he then found others who would help him and about two years back they started the build.

If what we do in life is based on things like employment, Mike took the right decision in including Shane as his choice as a winner, as Shane had joined the North Sails loft here in Cape Town. Shane was later part of the Shosholoza Americas Cup entry from South Africa, they chose Shane as part of the team, he was sent to Spain to work on Shosholoza's  North Sails!

http://www.teamshosholoza.com/

Roy

Dans Wharram Tiki 38 on the move

This was a materials pack to start with, timber, marine plys and epoxies, later many of the plys were CNC cut as well.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/12/building-tiki-37-catamaran-by-james.html

Yesterdays picture shows what Dan has built ove the last few years.

Loading one hull prior to delivery to the Naval Base in Simonstown.

The two hulls have been set up on a movable dolly, with the hulls the right distance apart, fitting and lashing the cross beams will be an easier task.

I have a list of what was cut on a local Tiki 38,the decks were not done using plywoods,they used Nida Core instead,we can supply that also, or the plywood required as in the design?

Plywoods,BS 1088 marine grade in Ockume veneers,sheet size is 2.44 x 1.22 mtrs (8'x 4')
9 mm x 41 sheets
12 mm x 9 sheets
18mm x 5 sheets

Panels cut and CNC works on 55 sheets to make the panels listed

you can take all or any part of what we offer,epoxies sell at R165 a kg,you
will require possibly 150kgs?
We can also supply the glass cloth and timber parts?
This is what we can CNC cut at this time.

Lower bulkheads
Upper bulkheads
Lower hull panels
Upper hull panels
Cross beams
Mast beam
Engine well
Stems
Beam through the hulls/doublers? ( the name may be wrong?)

More construction pictures and info can be found at the link below.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2010/11/tiki-38-boat-kit.html

Plans are purchased direct from James Wharram.

Regards

Roy

House Bay, Dassen Island

A stop at Dassen can often make perfect sense, its a break in the 62 mile trip from Cape Town to Saldahna, or when the weather turns, in our case it was just a clever over night stop before setting off to Hout Bay the next morning.

Safe only when the wind is from the south, which is the Cape Town side, or South West being the Hout Bay side. We are anchored in about 7.5mtrs of water at high tide here, January 14th 2002 (was it that long ago!)

An old salt told me to use a heading of 215 degrees magnetic on the wooden pier on the shore, check that yourself please!

Roy

Black Cat, Dudleys own boat

Affordable Performance.

This one was for me! For the first time in my professional design career I was the client. I drew her to be the type of boat that I enjoy - light, responsive, fast and fun.

She also had to be quick to build for only one or two people and fit a terminally ill wallet.
Launched in 1995, I have crossed the South Atlantic three times on her and experienced a run of nearly 250 miles in 24 hours and a top speed of nearly 22 knots.

~ More conservative version, with masthead rig and shallower keel. More info.

~ Plywood bulkhead kits. More info.  http://www.dixdesign.com/38didi.htm

Roy

A white Black Cat

Dudley Dix has always painted his boat white, the Didi 38 black Cat was to be no different, starting the Cape to Rio race in yellow and sporting the sponsers logo on the spinnaker, a Black Cat after the name of the peanut butter maker, Black Cat.

Photo by R McBride, the camera was a Sony cybershot.

The boat was later sold, the yellow became white but a black cat still exists.

This was the very first Radius Chine design in wood/epoxy from Dudley, they are really easy and fast to build, I did the hull to a 43 foot version in just six weeks and on my own.

Roy

Punta Pargo, Venezuela

Some years later and sailing into a small bay named Punta Pargo, Janet and Jean McBride are in the picture.

A Roy Mc Bride picture, the camera was a Canon FT film camera, using Kodaks Ecktachrome pro slide film.

We sailed to Port of Spain in Trinidad the next day.

Roy



Roy

The Paarman girls

There were six Paarman girls and four boys, all brought in to the world by Fred and Pearl Paarman, thats her sitting in front of her six daughters. Which one did I marry?

The place is Linga Longa in Glen Beach, home of the most famous of surfing families, the Paarmans.

How lucky can I be.

Roy

Slangkop, between a rock and a hard place

This was an event that was to have a profound effect on my life, not in anyway that would cause me problems but it did give me a huge amount of work that suddenly came from a new direction.

Namely an Endurance 37 yacht named Gulliver of Knysna, I was to re launch her some 51 weeks later and in Hout Bay harbour, we later cruised on her to Brasil, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.

 A Roy McBride picture, the camera was a Canon FT  film camera. Click on the picture for a full size view.

This looks bad? its all relative of course, I had bought the stripped wreck at the surf line far to the right of this picture, a risky purchase as if I could not remove the boat, the task of cutting her up would then be mine.

The guy with his back to the camera is Dennis Gentry of Tandem Rigging, it was he and his men who camped on the sandy land above the rocks for three nights, while they worked the steel cables at each tide. Bit by bit they clawed her up the rocky embankment.

Thanks guys!

How hard can this be?

Read more about this story at the link

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/06/columns/guest/mcbride2.htm

For some reason the pictures have been removed?

About two years later the same boat was anchored here in Mochima, a magical inlet in the coast line of Venezuela, for sure a long way a way and very much a highlight of my cruising life.

Roy

SA Police check the Fraser replica

Sean here at Sticklands police department, a specialist unit for checking cars that will be exported.

Clive checks the engine number and Vin plate, then takes a photographic record.

The car was first inspected inside the main building.

It says Bellville but its in Stickland?

How hard can this be.

Roy

Vortex, an OCC boat

Seen just yesterday Sean was discussing the next offshore trip, he has the right boat to do it in too,its a Nicolson 35, such a solid and well built yacht.

Sean Collins shows off his OCC cap (must get one myself)

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/08/occ-membersthe-collins-family-arrive-at.html

We discussed the quality of 316 stainless, or in  the case of the bimini supplied in Spain, the lack of quality, there is surface rust, while the original 316 stainless supplied with the boat is still perfect and its now twenty years old also.

On the OCC there is news in from Jenny Franklin, she says they have a Facbook page now, thats not for me but you can give it a try?

Hi Roy,

Great to hear from you, and I quite understand about facebook – it’s both invasive and addictive!!
Nevertheless, for my sins (and they are many!) I’ve been delegated to the task of running it and am trying hard not to let it take over my life completely. Still have some sailing to do!

Okay, the Ocean Cruising Club facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/378596952153031/ and

 the email is oceancruisingclub91@gmail.com

OCC Port Officer for Cape Town and Hout Bay
Roy