Saturday 1 February 2014

Dixi Dinghy kit

While the Argie 10 kit is the maximum boat we can offer from three sheets of plywood, the smaller Dixi dinghy tops that by being the most boat we can offer from two sheets of plywood.

http://www.dixdesign.com/dinghies.htm



With the smaller size and less materials the price comes down as well!

That a nice change in a world of rising costs.

Roy

British Seagull petrol tank wanted!

The picture says it all?

Does anyone have a spare petrol tank for me?


Click on the picture to see what a mess the tank is.


My spares supplier says in his 25 years of working with the British Seagull engine he has never seen the filler neck ripped out!


 
What is hidden under the brazing I have no idea?

The engine is a 5hp size and while its in a bit of a mess right now, will run once I have serviced it and fitted the new parts it needs. It may become a full restoration, the owner can tell me what he wants now he has my first report.

Another Vaal Dam and fresh water only engine, I think so.

Roy


 

Friday 31 January 2014

The Argie 10 dinghy kit

Simply the most in a 3.1 meter plywood boat that can be taken from just three sheets of plywood.


Click on the picture, built by Guy and from one of our kits.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/06/guys-argie-10-build.html

Unlike some other similar sized racing class boats, the Argie 10 is really a basic three in one sized boat, row it, sail it or motor it, a 2hp sized outboard suits this design really well.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/06/guys-argie-10-build.html

Or the Dix Design Dinghy range here  http://www.dixdesign.com/plywood_dinghies.htm

Roy

CKD Boats cc web site is down

This happened last year, our server has again forgotten to pay the annual licence fee, we are told its paid but this far no sight of the web pages.

We have changed the home page, it now features the Mirror Dinghy class and our being awarded the licence to CNC cut the plywood panels, a world first by the way!

We have also added two more Superform plywood retailers, one in Woodstock near Cape Town, the other is in George in the Eastern Cape. Open the plywood link to see the map and positions of the outlets.

When the web site is back up that is.

www.ckdboats.com

Roy

4pm, just checked, we have a web site again!

Wednesday 29 January 2014

Castrol Multitrax 140 grade gear oil

The British Seagull gear box is a special animal, as  water is allowed to mix with the gear oil but it needs to be a very heavy 140 grade!


We have the correct 140 grade gear oil in stock right now.


This will now be a stock Item for us and services on the British Seagull gear boxes will now be done with the correct grade of gear oil, not for resale, only for customers when we service their British Seagull motors.

Roy
 

Tuesday 28 January 2014

SA Mirror Dinghy kit supply news

We have the required Mirror Dinghy cut files and are sorting out the panel layouts to give the maximum return on the five sheets of okoume marine plywoods required for this design.


The plan is to optimise the use of the plywoods use and save on materials used on each boat we sell, this way we can offer you a Mirror Dinghy kit at the lowest possible price. We will also offer single hull panels to repair older boats as well as rudder and foils.

Designed in 1962 by Jack Holt and Barry Bucknell,  a well known publication named Pleasure Boating, 1977 and published by Mitchell Beazley Limited, London has a very (very) detailed building sequence starting on page 65 and on to page 69. We will use this as part of our own building routine for the first kit we produce and build.

http://www.ukmirrorsailing.com/

Quote:

There has always been an element of ' do it yourself" about pleasure boating even if in past days, it was only about touching up the varnish a bit. Until recent years ,however, only a skilled amature craftsman could contemplate building his own boat.

etc...............................

Our CNC cut kit will of course make that a thing of the past, all you have to do is prepare the panels we supply you and wire them together, the next stage being glass tapes and epoxy (supplied) and your Mirror hull is well on the way to the next stage.

A provisional kit cost has been calculated, please contact me for details.

See also  http://www.ckdboats.com/

Roy
 

Monday 27 January 2014

British Seagull repair and restoration

These motors were made for many decades, they are to be found country and world wide.

 
Click on the picture for a larger image.

This one is 1000 miles away from Hout Bay were we are, our couriers will collect it tomorrow and deliver to us for a full rebuild. Some motors require just a service, the power head and always the oil in the gear box, this one requires a full strip and rebuild with the petrol tank taking apart also, the filler cap fitting has gone completely!

We even have the correct grade of Castrol SAE 140 heavy duty gear oil coming into stock.

Dated 1973 I wonder what condition its in!

Roy
 

Eco 18 power boat kit

We are asked from time to time to CNC cut designs by other designers and sometimes ones we do not know, this is one of them.

 
An extract from Wooden Boat magazine.
 
Designed by B and B Yachts, you will need to buy the plans and the licence for us to cut the boat, the designer may even supply us a cut file and a licence to use them.
 
 
 
Eco 18, Marissa Runabout designed and built by Graham Byrnes of B&B Yacht Designs, Vandemere, NC;
252-745-4793. Wooden boat category winner of Professional BoatBuilder’s 2009 Design Challenge for efficient power boats. Photo by Aaron Porter. - See more at: http://www.woodenboat.com/what-is-that-boat#sthash.G00qNreS.dpuf



Roy

The story behind the 30 square design in South Africa

Its quite a story too, once the best boats in the country, they fell into disrepair but when they were
being raced as a Lipton Cup fleet they were some of the best in the world?



Click on the picture to view full size.

The event was the TBA Easter Regatta at the V&A Waterfront around 1998,
the long boat on the left just behind the smaller boat is the locally built version of the 30 square and named Sonnet.

Roy

This was an owners view of the 30 square class.


Hi Roy & Justin

This link will take you to just about the whole history of the 30-square class in SA.
 
http://www.sskf.se/news%20letter/the30sinsouthafrica.pdf

I have owned three of them at one time or another.

First was Sunmaid purchased from Colin Bowley in 1974 after the Lipton Cup was awarded to another more popular racing class so we would race among the remaining members who still owned a 30-Square.

I sold Sunmaid to Capt. Jacob Johansson who was the skipper of the dynamite ship that would become a floating bomb shipping dynamite from the AE&CI works in the Cape to be used in the mines in Zambia while Rhodesia was involved in its struggle to survive the winds of change. Jacob encased the whole of Sunmaid in GRP to prolong its sailing days but she was sadly broken up and sold for her lead content eventually.

Sonnet was designed by Uffa Fox and was double planked and far heavier built for Cape Town conditions while the imported boats almost all had to have extra steel frames inserted between the oak frames to stop them breaking up in the heavy seas around the Cape.

I understand that a 30-square was clocked at 17-knots on one race in Table Bay.

 I acquired Sonnet from Alan Duncan's widow after his death. He had owned and sailed Sonnet with Jock Gray for years in Table Bay from the RCYC and that's how I fitted into the chain by having sailed a lot on Sonnet with Jock as well as some of the other yachts he was minding. Mike Daily bought Sonnet from me in around 1988 I think when I needed the mooring for my new boat Jacana. Mike then set about rebuilding the boat to its present fine condition.

I was then presented with Tricksen by Dave Woolf on the understanding that I remove her from the RCYC boat yard as he had also sold her for scrap I understand, but I was never really the owner.

Notty.

Justin searched this link out:

Great bit in Wikipedia of all places on these see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skerry_Cruiser

With luck he will open a page on his SA Yacht blog


http://sayachts.blogspot.com/  this is the only place to start when you want to know the history about yachts built in South Africa.
 
 
 

 

 

Sunday 26 January 2014

Zeeslang up close at the Dusseldorf 2014 boat show

My thanks to Michael again for supplying the picture which he told me was taken by a professional .

 
Click on the picture to open it up.

The Fotografer was Klaus Andrews. www.KlausAndrews.com 

 
The plans no longer exist, as the original owner refused to sell the plans with the boat.

The picture Michael mentions is my own taken at the RCYC Small Craft Basin in 1977, scroll down to find it and the same Zeeslang on moorings.

Check the link for some history on Zeeslang:




Roy


Dear Roy,

thank you very much for that picture - it looks like as if the deckhouse had a very different shape back then. Is it correct that the picture was taken in 1977?

Attached please find a few pics taken at the Dusseldor boat show. On one of the pictures you can see a small red sailing boat model. By sheer coincidence this happened to be a model of Zeevalk - the predecessor of Zeeslang :) Quite interesting that the hull shape had a number features of Zeeslang already, so from Bruynzeels's point of view, Zeeslang clearly was an evolution.

 

regards

Michael