Building the Grey Seal

Building the Grey Seal

by Craig Hohm - Penn Yan, New York - USA

I first began to dream of building boats when I was a medical intern; the dream of being undisturbed on the high seas was a very compelling vision in this setting. 5 years later I attended an intro to boat building class in Brooklin, Maine, and while there fell in love with the Catspaw dinghy. This became my first boat, launched in 1989. It is a wonderful little craft, still getting active use sailing and rowing from March to November (and sometimes midwinter.)

The above was taken from the Duckworths Magazine story, it makes for interesting reading too.

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/06/projects/greyseal/index.htm

The build reminds me of more traditional build methods over the CNC cut kits we have on offer, I am never scared to re look at other methods and ideas, in fact I welcome them.

In this picture the large frames support the thinner laminated frames, the larger frames will be removed later when the hull skin is in place.

This I like, what a credit to the builder! the design is by Iain Oughtred, we may just produce this as a kit one day, it will probably be the 12mm thick marine ply skins and the laminated frames undreneath.

How hard can that be.

Roy

New council tax planned in Nottingham, England

April 1st joke perhaps?

Sorry mate but its true,

It was something Labour dreamed up but never got round to doing it, then Nottingham Council, who must be a Labour council, decided it would raise the £14000,000.00 that they need for the tram system and it was on the ITV News last week.

Notty

The return of Robbin Hood.

Hi Roy,

Yes, and he still lives and works in Nottingham but for the Council now!

Nottingham is the first City in the UK to start charging you for parking at work in your company provided parking space? They say if it is a success in Nottingham, then other Cities will adopt the scheme.

Any company now providing 10 or more parking spaces for its workers will have to pay £5000.00 a year for every ten spaces. This will be charged to the company as a direct tax and its up to the company if they want to pass the cost on to their workers.

Can you imagine a company the size of Rolls Royce or Toyota, they would soon move out of the area and probably out of the country if this loopy tax catches on.

They say it's so they can build a new tramway to ease congestion.
These Councils have completely lost the plot, they get a share of the taxes we all pay in road licences to pay for such things but instead of cutting their overblown spending they can only dream up new ways to tax the motorist.

If I owned a company in Nottingham I would be looking for a new factory somewhere else. This is a recipe for disaster and another way of closing down UK Plc.

This was an email received today.

Roy

Ocean Cruising Club newsletter

The OCC news letter for March 2012 has just arrived, as always the content makes for great reading from and  about cruisers who are world wide.

Cover page, click on it and read the story about the small bird, which continues to page two.

Page two,March 2012 news letter.

Thats a great story, I guess that little bird knows his way?

You want to know more about this world wide club, check out the link below

http://www.oceancruisingclub.org/

Roy

Port Officer, OCC, Hout Bay and Cape Town.

Wharram Tiki 38 connection beams

Working inside is such a pleasure, we had fierce sunlight, then a gale, now rain, all of no concern for Dan as he assembles his boat in the Simonstown Naval Dock Yard.

Pictures supplied by Dan.

Looking good, I guess Dan will fit the rudders and  step his mast inside too?

Roy

Hout Bays big smell problem

In the past I have sat in the board room of the fish processing plant in the picture, I was there to offer a solution to the smell that emits from the premises.

Having lived close by for thirty years, I know all about this stink, it happens when the smoke stack does as you see in my picture, which was yesterday afternoon. I assume this comes from an overload in the system, they fail to keep the cleaning correct and just pile more and more rotten fish into the process plant.

At the last meeting with the company, I comented on the fact that the office staff work in a double glazed and air conditioned enviroment, with double door entry lobby's, the rotten air does not enter the building, so the staff work in a clean enviroment while we outside suffer ?

I also mentioned that the foul stink of rotton fish came from the smoke stack, you can imagine my surprise to be informed this was not the case and the smell came from the factories ground floor open  windows and doors. I was amazed to hear this and asked the senior engineer to repeat what he had just told me, short of calling him a liar I began to think they live in denial.

How hard can this be, Oceana's profit margins are the cause, the share holders must win, to hell with the residents of Hout Bay.

Roy

Packing our kit orders

When kits are shipped overseas, it is vital that they arrive in the condition we pack them in, over time we have developed a system of crates that are glued and screwed togther, then steel banded for extra security, we do this at cost of the materials used plus labour to the customer.


More on this in the link below.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/search?q=packing

This is a Didi Mini Transat, the customer is John and he lives in England, all his kit was packed in a similar fashion.

The box is screwed and glued together, then steel band strapped for extra security. Note the double set of lables, both the customers name and address and our own as a return address.

Boxed an ready for collection.

This is what can be inside a crate, a lead ballast set to a Didi Mini Cruise, plus some epoxy.

Timber such as stringers and rails are double wrapped into water proof bundles, kits can also be fumigated at an extra cost.

Loading a big boat kit, in this case the Dix Designed Didi 38

http://www.dixdesign.com/38didi.htm

Roy

The Fisher Swampscott 12

Thats new to CKD Boats, the actual design may have been around some while.
Recently we made the spars to a Stornaway 14, the owner builder had already made the boats hull from plans, its now on a Cad file so we can offer that as a kit.

Now we have been asked by another client to supply the materials and CNC them to shape from the plans he has bought from Selway-Fisher, the same design group that do the Stornaway 14.

Fisher Swampscott 12' Particulars

LOA 12' or 3.66m

Beam 4'2" or 1.27m

Hull Mid Depth 1' 7 3/4" or  0.5m

Draft 7"/2' 11 1/2" or 0.18/0.9m

Sail Area 62.8 sq.ft or 5.84 sq.m

Approx. Dry Weight 66lbs

Hull Shape

Narrow flat bottom plus 4 planks per side - plans give both narrow and wide transom hulls

Construction Method Stitch and tape and clinker ply

Major plywood requirements for hull 2 sheets of 6mm and 2 sheets of 9mm plywood

Guidance Use 2 adults

Drawing/Design Package

4 x A1 drawings + 12 x A4 instruction sheets which include lug sail and sprit with jib alternative sail plans and moulds for clinker ply construction

Prices on application and probably by next week.

Roy

The HBYC marina flys the flag

When the change in government arrived, so did the change in the national flag, the then commodore Alan Batley, called and early morning meeting at the HBYC club house on the beach and the new flag was unveiled.

Alan Batley is now the HBYC marina manager and clubs manager, he still carries on the tradition he started nearly nineteen years ago!

The man himself, Alan Batley, seen here at one of his two offices, this one is on the HBYC marina.

Roy

SSB Radio frequencies for yachties

Radio communications can be a great way of staying in touch but also a good way of finding out what is in  the local and world news?

You will need a suitable AM radio reciever, if the bands you want to listen to are amature bands, the choice of upper and lower side bands will be required.

Local News, Cape Town, South Africa, Cape Talk 567, which is an AM band on 0.567khz.

The Yaesu FRG7700

A communications receiver like this is great but it may be too bulky for your own use, a small programable portable should do the job just as well.

Amature bands, South Africa, there is a Durban net run at 13.30hrs and 17.30hrs, you will need upper side band and the frequencies 14.316khz and 07.120khz. There is a general call in for yachts heading for or traveling the coast. Plus a weather service thats worth listening to.

They may also use the Marine Band on 8.101khz and upper side band, that is one of the many programable marine bands.

BBC bands, lots of those, used for the Southern Africa service, you will need to try which ever band works best at the time of day or place your listening from.

AM bands

 3.255khz  6.190khz 7.385khz  9.740khz 11.940khz  12.095khz 15.400khz  17.640khz   21.470khz

You will need to try the various bands yourself to see which works for you, plus search the dial and discover the other world services programs.

SA Maritime Net


06:30 UTC: Starts on 14316 kHz for 5-10 minutes, and then moves to 7120 kHz. (New frequency). 11:30 UTC: Starts on 14316 kHz for approx. 30 minutes and then moves down to 7120 kHz. (New frequency).

SA Maritime Net (unofficial)

http://www.sailblogs.com/member/southafricanmaritimemobilenet/

My thanks to Justin of the HBYC for the last two paragraphs of info, as lifted from the HBYC radio pages.

http://hbycnotices.blogspot.com/


Roy