As usual, this newsletter is long overdue. This is in part due to the time demands of two moves in the past year. The first was the big one across both the Atlantic and the equator, from South Africa to USA. The other was from our temporary rented apartment to the house that we bought.

We are now settled and fully operational, working out of our home office. Our details are:-

1340-1232 N Great Neck Rd #343,
Virginia Beach, VA 23454-2230,
USA.
Tel (757)962-9273
Fax (757)965-3573

That is our mailing address so, if you intend to visit us, please call to ask for our street address. We are alongside a lake in the Kings Grant subdivision of Virginia Beach.

We now have two 36” inkjet roll plotters, so we have a faster turn-around on orders. We left the ammonia printer in South Africa and had all of our older designs scanned to form computer files. All are printed on the plotters, so drawing info fading off the paper is no longer a problem for slow builders.

We have a new section on the website covering the construction of the multi-chine steel Pratique 35. This is based on the project of Peter Weston of Alice Springs in Australia. Work has progressed well on his boat, which now has the steelwork completed, blasted and primed. It is an amateur project built from components that were pre-cut by CNC and delivered to the site, ready for assembly.

Our web pages for the project now contain nearly 100 photos with text explanations. Other amateur builders should find these very helpful.

There is a Didi Mini in build alongside Lake Erie in Pennsylvania. The difference from other builds is the number of people involved. By the time that the boat is launched, more than 1000 children will have been involved in the project. It is being built at the Bayside Center for Maritime Studies in Erie, which works with local schools and other community organisations to provide boatbuilding experience for the youth. Visit their website.

Slade Rowing in Johannesburg, South Africa, build competition rowing shells. We designed the Vision Single for them, which they build from high strength carbon prepreg in lightweight and heavyweight versions. One of these was rowed by schoolboy Ryan Anderson to a win in the 2004 South African Junior Rowing Championships.

Obtaining good sailing photos is often a problem. The owners launch their boats then get very involved with sailing and don’t find time or opportunity to take sailing photos. We are very grateful when we are sent some. This has happened recently for a few designs so we now have new sailing photo pages for the Didi 26 and Didi 38/40. Access these from the design page for each design.

We also have many more building photos for the radius chine plywood designs. We now have building photo sections for the Didi Mini, Didi 26 and Didi 38/40. Each photo has a text explanation alongside it to assist builders. These sections are also accessed from the design page for each design. These pages will be expanded as time and available photos allow. They also contain tips for builders and corrections to drawings when needed.

"Cerkez Kizi" is a Didi 40, built and owned by Baha Akin in Turkey. He and his crew have recently taken first place in the Marmaris International Race Week, sailed annually in Turkey. Baha and Sinem Akin visited us earlier this month while holidaying in USA and told us that they managed line honours in their division in every race. Our congratulations go to Baha and his crew.

Unicorn Kayaks in Pennsylvania commissioned a 16ft kayak design earlier this year. They build skin on frame kayaks and offer boatbuilding courses for this construction. The prototype of the Dix 16 has been launched and is reported to perform and handle very well. Complete boats or kits can be ordered from Unicorn Kayaks.

A Dix 61 build will begin early in the New Year in Turkey. This sandwich GRP fast cruiser will be built as a one-off over male moulds and rigged with a new cutter rig that we will draw for the Turkish owner. More detail will be on our website when available, so that other people interested in having a boat built in that part of the world can follow the project. We have a number of other boats being built in Turkey by both amateur and professional builders.

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