Frank Wightmans book The Wind Is Free surfaces

This mail came in yesterday, it left a question at the end, what was it about?

Hello,

I hope I am not intruding on your time, but I

'navigated' my way to your email address in

my search to find the owner/restorer of

Frank Wightman's "Wylo".

The several websites didn't make a direct link,

but I think you are the gent in question.

Please let me know as I have something

that might be of interest to you.

Best regards,

James

The copy looks to be in fair condition, what is special about it though?

Thank you for writing me so quickly Roy.
One of my activities here is as a collectible
books dealer and just today in a stroke of
serendipity I bought a copy of
"The Wind is Free" by Wightman.
A very nice though used copy, without a jacket, but,
 . . . signed "F.A Wightman" on the half title page.

One of the things I've always tried to do is not
just put books up for sale, but to research ones of
unusual or special interest - and try to place them
where they would be best appreciated.

The book has been signed by its author, for which James adds a value today of U$100, thats a bit rich for myself, yes I would love to own this book !

If anyone wants to buy this book and before its put out for sale, please contact me and I will put you in contact with the seller.

You can view Franks boat in this link http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/01/wylothe-original-that-frank-wightman.html

 

Roy

 

Hi Roy,

 

Thanks for sharing some info on Wylo and Frank Wightman.

 

I bought a book many years ago in a second hand shop in England titled "The wind is free" and of course you know who the author was. I joined the Royal Navy and read the book whilst serving on a minehunter as a Clearance Diver. I have tracked down and read another book, "My way leads me seaward" and have re-discovered my interest in the whole life story of Frank and Gray. Is there any kind of information available on his life story, or is there any kind of official society that you know of (especially in the cape area) that would have any idea where to start. I guess there must be links to his publishing house or biographer but any searches I have made bring me back round the houses to the same few links!!

 

I see that a restoration project was started which is great, because if Wylo is allowed to just fade away it would be a sad loss, she deserves to be preserved as do his fantastic books! Someone would be missing a trick if she is not to be seen again.

 

I thank you for your time and hope that you can point me in the right direction towards a little more info.

 

Fair winds,

 

Gary Jackson.

 

P.S. I have visited The Cape before and would love to return one day. Where is Wylo and would it be possible to see her with my own eyes??

Thanks again for your time.

A South Afican i550, more pictures

These progress pictures came in two days back, Will has his hull built now and looks to be moving onto the seats and then the decks.

The standard boat uses sixteen sheets of 6mm okoume marine plywood, Will took a few more to allow him some variations if needed.

 

CKD Boats cc supplied all of the plys and the CNC work to cut them, Will sourced the rest of the materials where he lives.

 

 

This is hull #1 i550 built in South Africa, there is interest in more being built.

 

Roy

 

 

Stone Form information in Cape Town, South Africa.

Stone Form is now on our web site.

Try this link http://www.ckdboats.com/stoneform.html you will find a link there to ideas on installation also.

Yes,this is flexible but the face is real stone!  The standard sheet size is 600mm x 1200mm.

We are gathering information of what glues to bond Stone Form tiles to floors, Stone Form sheets to counters and walls, these will be available pre packed when you order.

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/05/introducing-stone-form-flexible-stone.html
Roy

Wills i550 progress with our kit

The progress since I last looked is remarkable!

Will has had problems with using epoxies in the fierce heat they experience where he is building, we always give advice when those materials are purchased from us, I am not sure who was his supplier?

June has been about crawling around inside the boat cutting the bunks to size and prepping the bilges for epoxy. I am not friends with the heavy 450GSM biaxial tape I am using. So many air pockets to sort out. I have found out (far too late of course!) that cutting the edges off the tape length ways with a rotary cutter significantly improves the quality of the taping. Also, the cooler weather is allowing me the luxury of wetting the tape out first, leisurely filleting and then applying the tape, spiral rolling and adding peel ply and spiral rolling again. This has, mostly, raised the quality of my glass work as the tape is very heavy and prone to trapping air. On the few occasions I have felt able to use the lighter 200GSM tape it has been a breeze, maybe I should have used more?!

Words above by Will, my advice is not to use glass tapes that are so heavy, often hand cutting biaxial cloth sheeting gives you a much more flexible material?

http://471.sailspace.org/wp/

We have local boat builders who can assemble our kit for you.

Roy

Cape Cutter 19, how to line up your boats bulkheads?

This is a great idea!

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Check that red line Jorgen has passing through the bulkheads of his Cape Cutter 19.
This asks a question, can a lazer beam be used instead of that red string?

About building: I will be as sure as I can that the Bulkheads are
placed correct before I dress them with Longitudals.
So I drilled a 5mm hole in everone and check if there
is 2mm "air" round the 1mm string. See photo.

Perhaps other builders do so, I don´t know.

Regards Jorgen

Sweden

 When I do this work I set up an overhead nylon line that stays there the entire time, the line is dead center of the build and using a length of brazing rod I drop a plumb bob weight down and can check the centers that way.
Note, the licence to cut this design with our CNC machine was stopped when the GRP moulds were purchased, what we can offer is the Cape Henry 21 and now the Cape May 24, all based on the Cape Cutter 19.

We can offer all of our kits as a flat pack of CNC cut ply only, you can then source the balance of the materials where you are, our service in this respect tends to be in a matter of weeks. Shipping to places like the USA takes about three weeks.

Roy

On reflection

Proof that the waters in the Hout Bay Harbour can be very clean at times, the calm waters were showing off the new International Paints 990 white polyurethanes off really well.

The boat is built from plywood/epoxy and was designed by Dudley Dix @ www.dixdesign.com 

Which means that the steel keel thats holds the lead ballast excepting, the boat has none of the corrosion worries that this steel boat close by has. Thats an anode at the end of the steal strap.

Roy

US President Obama Hout Bay guards in uniform

There they were, right next to me and trying out the Hout Bay Presidential guards uniforms.

Very smart looking I must say.

President Obama, we are ready for you!

Roy

A Leopard seal in hout bay

I have seen just the one, so close it was a few paces away, one look at the row of teeth told me this was best left alone! It is now part of a paper on the subject which I had a small part in.

Roy

A Trevour Hardaker photo, many thanks for its use.

Quite unlike our local Cape Fur Seals which are a lot darker in colour. The seal was seen on both the ABC marina where it is in this photo but also on the HBYC marina where I saw it too.

http://www.zestforbirds.co.za/leopardseal01.html copy and paste this link to Google.

Dear All

Please find the final version of the Leopard seal paper attached. Thank you for good collaboration regarding this publication.

Best regards
Katja

Some of the paper can be read below, its on a PDF, so if you want the full story please contact me.

Roy


Occurrence of vagrant
 

leopard seals, Hydrurga

leptonyx, along the South

African coast
 

Katja Vinding1,2,3*, Michael Christiansen3,

Greg J. Hofmeyr2,4, Wilfred Chivell1,

Roy McBride5 & Marthán N. Bester2

1Dyer Island Conservation Trust, Kleinbaai, Western Cape,

South Africa

 

2 Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and

Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20,

Hatfield, 0028 South Africa

 

3Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark

4Port Elizabeth Museum at Bayworld, P.O. Box 13147,

Humewood, 6013 South Africa

 

5CKD Boats, Hout Bay, South Africa

Received 3 August 2013. Accepted 11 May 2013

 

Leopard seals inhabit the pack-ice rim of Antarctica,

and they regularly haul out on Antarctic and Subantarctic

islands. Occasionally, vagrants are sighted

further north in South America, Australia, New

Zealand, and very rarely in southern Africa and

Oceania. Here we report on an observation made on

the 15th of July 2010 of a single 3-m-long juvenile

leopard seal at ‘Die Dam’in theWestern Cape, South

 

Africa (34°45.772’S, 19°42.582’E). We searched historical

records and found details of four observations

of leopard seals along the coast of South Africa

since 1946. All of these sightings were of juvenile

animals. The relative scarcity of observations is a

likely reflection of the great distance from Antarctica

and the Subantarctic to South Africa.

  

Key words: leopard seal, distribution, vagrancy.

Leopard seals are distributed along the outer

fringes of the Antarctic pack ice during the austral

spring (Bester et al. 1995; Gilbert & Ericson 1977;

Rogers 2009). They infrequently haul out on

Subantarctic islands such as Marion Island (Bester

et al. 2006), seasonally at Macquarie Island

(Rounsevell 

 

Jorgens Cape Cutter 19 stainless steel kit arrives

This month we sent two stainless steel boat packs off, both by Courier It, one was to the USA and the customer for a Cape Henry 21 plywood CNC cut kit we supplied last year, the other was to Jorgen, who is building a Cape Cutter 19 in Sweden.

Hello Roy,

Here comes a photo I like!

All seems okey.

Thank you / regards Jörgen

We sent the order using our courier service on the 19th of this month, looks like it
arrived today, thats just nine days!

Roy

A South African Hillman Imp 998cc engine

This one is here now and in Cape Town, it will be built up in the next few weeks and may be for sale? It will be a short motor, a cylinder head is not included but options for one, including the later Mk2 L4 head with the sport type rear oil drain hole exist. The larger ImpSport inlet valves and seats can be fitted to this head.

The liners and pistons are brand new, so are the crank and big end bearings.

All journals on the crank were recut to a 0.010" size.

Quality 998cc Imp pistons and rings were Imported from our overseas suppliers.

The blue outer paper gasket suits a Wills ringed head, we would recomend a solid copper 998cc gasket for normal local use. This engine would be sold on exchange for a sound Mk2 or Sport engine.

Best offer this year?

Roy

A yacht or power boat hard dodger kit

We have done a number of these kits now.

Eache one supplies the materials to build right up to the paints required to complete the build with.

This was the demo unit, loaded a ready to deliver.

The roof former jig is made from MDF, you just slot in the timber stiffeners, then laminate the supplied 4mm marine plys and 8mm Superform bending ply as the core.

The long sides or wings suited the center cockpit application required, they are optional and not part of the standard kit.

We supply the tempered glass and Dow-Corning 818 silicone in the standard kit. Also the teak grab rails and the center hatch, which is CNC cut for you to make and fit to the finished canopy.

Check the link for more details.
http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-new-hard-dodger-for-your-boat.html

We have shipped these kits to Zealand and also the USA, a detailed builders guide is included with each kit.

Locally these kits can be offered as pre built and ready for you to install.
Roy

Danckaert traveling bed table saw for sale/sold!

Now sold.

This is the real thing, a solid cast iron table saw that can cut both solid wood to 100mm deep and also boards like plywood and MDF (supawood) etc.

The make is Danckaert of Belgium, the motor is reputed to be around 10hp, in storage right now and for sale at R9000 (about U$900) we can ship world wide.

Cutting this laminated Didi 26 Iroko drop keel to size is easy with this machine.

The bed is solid and flat due to the iron casting, the rails are a heavy casting with genuine roller bearing greasable iron wheels. The start switch needs attention or a replacement.

Check the link to see the fifty years of heritage in this machine!

http://www.danckaert.com/

All the boats are by Dudley Dix Design being two Didi Mini Transats and an Argie 10 dinghy, we offer those as kits, CNC cut plywoods and epoxies.

Roy

Buying a new Hillman Imp

No its not now possible, I did it once I am pleased to say!

We have a once off offer, a dry stored Hillman Imp which was licenced first on January 1st 1973, which is rather strange.

Find it here  http://royckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-new-hillman-imp-circa-1973.html

This offer would suit someone who wants an as near as new car, of course the car is now forty one years old, so is a restoration project. There is no floor pan rot, just some minor spots on a wheel arch which will be attended to.

This engine could be one you may want?

http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-south-african-hillman-imp-998cc-engine.html

There is also a rebuilt Sport motor, totally original and with the early 170 series cylinder head. The new pistons are Hepolite Powermax and to 0.60" oversize, the engine has never run since being rebuilt. With an R17 360 lift  camshaft right now it can be de tuned to the Sport 310 lift camshaft.

Roy

DS 15 by Dix design

This one has been developed with the help of the builder of DS15 hull # 1, its not quite finished, Dudley Dix tells me he can have the cut files ready soon.

Plans and a kit from CKD Boats cc

Hunter Gall working on his DS 15, the design is quite new and has not yet been posted on the designers list of boats he offers.

It should be noted that this is Hunters first attempt at building a boat.

Roy

The end of the road

In this case its really the end of the pier in Hout Bay Harbour.

This looks like Philip, who looks after the large trawler to the left has posted the sign?

Afrikaans or English, it means the same!

Roy