Saturday, 29 October 2011

The Jaguar mirror page,Du Ponts New Red painted Jaguar 3.8 S type

The 1967 Jaguar 3.8 S type I found on a dealers web site looks just like my own,in fact so alike it could be a mirror view,excepting its left hand drive,the only differences are the spot light centers and a rather handy rear view drivers mirror.


Pictures taken from the Sunset Classics web pages,my thanks to them,the car is now sold?

Why bother mentioning the car looks just like my own? Well for very many years the annual Cape Jaguar Drivers Club concours event would see my own car loose around 60 points due to a None Jaguar Paint Colour,one judge (dave price) docked 20 points of the engine bay alone one year,the reds wrong he told me (so much for being an expert) I still managed to win the S Type concours five times in spite of the dropped points.


So here we are,the same model Jaguar as my own and in the same paint colour,whats so special about that? Well one car and it may even be this car,went through a full rebuild,the paint shade was known to be a Du Pont paint used by Jaguar.Du Pont checked thier records and found it was indeed their paint and was named New Red.


How close a match can this be! this picture was taken here about a month back.
The lights in the garage and the Canon G11 camera have made the paint shade look
as brite as they have.


R McB

Thursday, 27 October 2011

A new look HBYC frontage

We have had a donation from Lotto to upgrade the clubs facilities,mainly to allow a youth sail training program,the entire rear boat park has been upgraded and will be about finished by the months end.


The clubs frontage looked well enough untill the area in front of the fence was included in the picture,we had just loose dirt there up untill this week.


Master paver Derek looks to be doing a fine job,I would expect the frontage of the club to be completed by this week,it certainally lifts the image of the HBYC up.


Derek the paver,this just shows what a club like ours can do with donations,the response from the clubs committee was really fast,the money has been spent well and in good time,the raised employment level was equal to the size of the donation of course.


The HBYC logo thats so hard to find!

R McB




Tuesday, 25 October 2011

A none slip deck finish you can do yourself

The saying is necessity is the mother of invention and so it was when I wanted to apply a none slip surface to a boat I was working on.I have used some stuff from cans,its sort of ok,lasts a few years,then it needs a re coat,more money of course.


In this case the idea was a failure,the cockpit seats lasted only nine years,I missed a trick when I applied the top coats,in the case of the rest of the boat and after about forteen years we are spot on and the process was and still is a success.

 

Three cockpit seats worth of none slip finish,the beers were not a part of the process! I should not have been able to strip the polyurethane top coats from the Intergard primer surface.What had happened was some years of foot traffic in the cockpit and prior to the application of the none slip,there must have been a dirt build up,its that which stopped a 100% bond.


The same cockpit,better prepared and properly sanded,washed down with fresh water and Teepol (not fairy liquid) then given two coats of International Paints Intergard epoxy primer.The none slip system comes next,watch the next blog for details,materials to the system are available ex stock.

How hard can this be?

R McB

Monday, 24 October 2011

Trade winds arrive in Hout Bay

Yesterdays weather was becoming more normal by late afternoon,in fact it was sun cream and shorts weather,a far cry from the wind and rain of the day before and the HBYC Opening Cruise.


Picture by R Mc Bride

The blue skies and long white clouds over Chapmans Peak are a perfect indicator to summer trade wind weather days.

Sunday, 23 October 2011

The making of a Gardner straight eight diesel engine,part two.

This engine really facinates me,I never knew the name Gardner was from an original Liverpool family,my ex home town of course.Gardner engines still match up for total economy,they have a large weight penalty but on some displacement boats this may not be an issue? The two engines below are on a local charter boat,they are the originals and  date back to 1943  Click on the factory picture to view the full size of the Gardner factory. My thanks to boat owner Mike for the chance to take a picture inside his engine room.If you want to experiance a trip on Mikes boat over the season,please contact me and I will give you a contact phone number.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Gardner_and_Sons check the link out for a full story on the engines.
http://www.woodenboat.net.nz/Stories/mrgardnerfolder/mrgardner.html this one I love!


They made things big and strong in Manchester in those long gone days.

Trafford Park was the hub of heavy engineering in Manchester even when I was working there, they made all sorts of things from motors to transfomers to huge generators for power stations.

The only problem at the time was the soot that every factory churned out as many of the old factories were still powered by coal fired steam engines. I can remember, on cold icy mornings on the way to school, we would stop to warm ourselves outside the open fronted boiler room of Wilsons Hat Factory where we watched the stokers throwing coal into the open mouths of three or four grate boilers. Most of the machinery then would be belt driven from overhead pullies all driven by a huge low revving steam engine near the boiler room.

Romatic days indeed if you were a steam buff.


Notty.





Thursday, 20 October 2011

More Dragon Boat Class paddles

Not sure but we seem to be the only  South African company with the past expertise to make the correct pattern Dragon Boat paddles,we have made hundreds in the past.It all started when the class was begun here in Cape Town, the insurance company Old Mutual decided it was a good venture to support and placed a very large first order for paddles with the then Commercial Lumber cc,which later became CKD Boats cc as we moved into the kit boat market.


This pair are not brand new but restored,they will live to paddle another day,one was sold yesterday,there are others but the best option soon will be to remake as new.The blades of the new ones will be epoxy and glass reinforced,probably with some carbon added to increase the blade strength.


An original Old Mutual Dragon Boat paddle,its a reminder of the hours of hand shaping done to cut them from a single plank of Spanish or Red Cedar,we can now use American White Poplar (cotton wood) but use the CNC machine to cut and profile,ensuring they are all the same.Weight was never an issue,they all came in under the 800 grams allowed.


On the first batch made we just copied the original paddle as brought in from Hong Kong,those had a handle pegged in place with two hardwood 6mm dowels,we soon found that to be a weak spot.These handles are hiding the double rebated and socketed then epoxy glued into place method we now use.

Contact me for new paddles.

R McB

A sailing Lynnhaven canoe?

We get asked can a Lynnhaven canoe be fitted with a sail,if so whats involved? I think wewill have one very quickcanoe with this rig on it,as the boat length is twice that of an Optimist.


Some words on the subject by the designer,Dudley Dix are below.
I have not drawn a sail plan for the Lynnhaven but I was approached by someone who wanted to fit an Optimist rig to the Lynnhaven 16 that he was planning to build. I added the Oppie rig to a Lynnhaven profile to show how it would look. I think that this is a viable solution that will be easy and inexpensive. There should be many old Oppie rigs available to buy one and drop it into the boat. It would attach to the aft side of the forward seat, held with U-bolts or similar.
The hole in the bow is to make a simple carrying handle and attachment for ropes. There is a similar one aft as well.

R McB

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Cape Henry 21 bulkhead kit

This is the bulkhead set to a new (local)  build of the Dudley Dix designed Cape Henry 21,this version will have Bilge Keels to allow a more open interior space.

 Note the stepped scarph on the left hand sheet,thats one of the larger bulkheads and will join to another panel to make up one large bulkhead.This certainally makes life simple for the boats builder.


Note the 9mm dowel or peg holes,they ensure the scarphs are lined up 100%.

 A stepped scarph,left click any picture for a larger view.


The panel on the left is the inside of the transom,the hooked section is part of the bow stem.

How hard can this be?

R McB


This is what the bulkhead and related kit parts will end up looking like,picture and words taken from the Dix Design web pages on the Cape Henry 21 design.

"Mehala" was owner-built by South African Mike Smith, who lives in Darien, Connecticut. He berths her at Norwalk Yacht Club on Long Island Sound, where he is a past commodore

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

The traveling Imp

Time came to move our customers 998cc Hillman Imp (singer chamois sport) we used the same car lift company as before,its such a pro service and also very safe and easy to have loaded.


The Gardens Towing trailer

Off loading is done as you want it and very easily by the truck driver on his own.


Ready for the next stage

The 1966 Imp is dwarfed by a so called Modern.


This is the longest distance the car has done on its own wheels in some while,even then the engine was not used.

My thanks to Clive who took all the pictures.

R Mc B


Monday, 17 October 2011

Hout Bay Yacht Club opening cruise 2011

The day will be on saturday 22nd of October,Jean says rain is due but the club house has a very good roof in place (with a bar underneath it) so sailing or otherwise,we will see you at the club!


The club is in the harbour,about center in the picture below.What a great place to sail and keep your boat.

Picture by R McBride using a Sony Cybershot digital camera.Left click on the picture to enlarge it.

A balanced Lug rig for the PDRacer

To me the Lug rig looks so nice,sort of French? PDRacer plans are just U$20,thats a low R170 right now.We can of course supply the boats materials and even CNC cut the plys,you make your own sail from reinforced plastic sheet.

R McB


Monday, October 22, 2007


Lug Rig for OZ PDR

I have just finished additional drawings for a lug rig version of the OZ PDRacer.

I would like to think I am something of an expert on lug rigs ritted to small boats. I have sailed countless hours with such rigs including weekly club races against conventional boats through to classic boat regattas.

My website has probably the best resource on the web (and maybe anywhere) for setting up lug rigs to sail really well – almost equal to “modern” boats.

So why has it taken me so long to draw up a lug rig for the OZ PDRacer?

The only answer is the time involved!

Timber Requirement
The timber list in this section is a complete replacement for all the mast and boom material in the standard OZ PDR plan.

Experience sailing a OZ PDR with a lug rig.
I did put the much larger Goat Island Skiff sail on one of the Queensland OZ PDRs earlier this year as an attempt to take the maximum sail area record from the Americans (right). I was only game to sail in quite a light wind as the standard OZ PDR mast is too lightweight and flexible for such a large sail area – I was worried about breaking it.

As you probably know the sail area on the OZ PDR is quite large as standard (82sqft) but lug rig was much larger (105sq feet).

The PDR handled the big lug rig beautifully, sailing upwind and down sedately under control and accelerated quickly to quite high speeds in the light breeze. It tacked and gybed reliably as well.

I don't think there is much point in going smaller than the standare PDR rig as the lug rig is easy to reef to match the wind.

Advantages and disadvantages.
The lug rig has a number of advantages and only one disadvantage that I can think of. So let's talk about the disadvantage first.

There is an extra spar to make up and I do recommend that it be made round to make best use of the flexibility to get an improved gust response for sailing in strong and fluctuating winds.

It probably adds around 2 to 3 hours to the building time.

The advantages are
1.The sail can be reefed easily for different wind strengths and sea conditions. I have made use of this capability by making the sail slightly larger than the original sprit rig. There is no discredit in sailing around with the sail reefed in moderate winds – particularly when you can use full sail in light winds and blow everyone away with the performance.
2.The spars are shorter allowing for easier stowage and cartopping – a maximum of 3.9m (13ft) – three feet shorter than the original rig.
3.Shorter spars reduce the timber cost and maybe reduce the weight slightly.
4.The centre of effort of the sail is a little lower allowing a larger sail to be carried.

The lug rig plans are available to all purchasers of OZ PDR Plans at no cost. Any other PDRacer owners can get a copy which includes all the information for the spars and the homemade sail by purchasing an OZ PDR Plan for $20 from duckflat, duckworks or seawing boats.

6 comments:


Shariputra said...
Hi Mik, I purchased your OZ Duck plans from Duckworks some time ago. Its an excellent, fully detailed presentation BTW. What proof of purchase do you need regarding the lugsail update? Should I contact you directly? My boat isn't built yet, but the time is nigh! Dakota and her Dad have inspired me. ;-) Regards, Tony.
Boatmik said...
Hi Shariputra. Contact me directly Michael.
Villo said...
Hi Mik, as shariputra I purchase today your OZ Duck plans from Seawingboats, but there are no details about lugsail. Must I directly contact you?
Boatmik said...
Hi Villo, If you want a copy of the lug rig just email me. I will ask a couple of questions and send the lug rig information to you for free. Best wishes Michael Storer
vann_solo said...
Hi Mik, I too just purchased the plans via Paypal from Duckworks. How do I contact you to obtain the lugsail update? Harry
Boatmik said...
Howdy, Contact me directly. storerm at ozemail.com




The Lynnhaven Canoe by Dix Design

This is a revisit to argue what a designer offers for what you pay,whats up front,whats hidden?

Some plan sets may look expensive when stacked against another design,size for size is not the
only issue,its what a designer gives for his fee? The Dix Design Lynnhaven Canoe plans set costs U$10 more than say the other canoe featured recently but that U$10 extra also includes a full set
of paper templates you can lay out on your plywood to enable instant setting out.Due to the size of the package there is also a post and pack fee of U$15 but this still represents excellent value.

Note,some cheaper plans options barely give you dimensions,some never give a materials list.They may supply the dimensions to the bottom of the boat if its a flat sheet but not the hull sides as they are curved and too complicated to draw,with Dudleys designs you get the full package and with the Lynnhave Canoe an extra six inches too!
DUDLEY DIX YACHT DESIGN

Lynnhaven 16

Plywood Touring Canoe




Lynnhaven 16 stitch & glue plywood canoe plans
Prototype of the Lynnhaven 16
~ Attractive and capable touring canoe

~ 1-3 Person capacity

~ Paddle as a canoe

~ Fit rowlocks and oars for a small pulling boat

~ Integral buoyancy/storage in seats

~ Easy amateur build

~ Ideal school or family project

~ Plans include full size patterns

~ Illustrated step-by-step instructions

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Lynnhaven 16 plywood canoe plans




The Lynnhaven 16 is designed for those who want a family fun boat that they can build themselves. I built the prototype in 3 weeks of weekends and evenings, total less than 100 hours of single-handed work.

This is about as much boat as can be built from 3 sheets of plywood, with very little scrap left at the end of the project. I built the prototype from 6mm (1/4") plywood, which produced a robust boat but a bit heavy at 32kg (70lb). It can be built from 3mm (1/8") plywood to about 20kg (45lb) or anything between.

Construction is stitch-&-glue, so it is suitable as a first time boatbuilding project. The plans include full size paper patterns showing every plywood component, nested for marking straight onto the plywood sheets. A set of step-by-step instructions is also supplied, including more than 40 colour photos of the entire building process.

The Lynnhaven 16 is suitable for exploring your local rivers and lakes, or it can be car-topped across the country for camp cruising waters far away.

Pre-cut plywood kits will soon be available from suppliers in various countries.




Lynnhaven 16 stitch & glue plywood canoe plans
Lynnhaven 16 stitch & glue plywood canoe plans





Follow this link to print a material list for this design. You will also find answers to questions about construction in our FAQ pages.

CHARACTERISTICS




LOA 4.70m (15'5")
Beam 0.9m (3'0")
Weight 20-32kg (45-70lb)
Plan Prices (includes full size paper patterns)

USA & Canada - US$75 Order now
Shipping $10 North America, $30 elsewhere





This design is drawn in metric and has both metric and inch dimensions added.





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