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| I opened the hole for the hatch, because it was pitch dark in the cabin. I already needed a headlamp for the last tasks ! |
This blog will take you along the different steps of building a 23 foot dropkeel sailboat. The DIDI 23 is one of the available designs for the amateur builder designed by Dudley Dix. The boat is built as a radius chine trailer sailer from plywood with bulb dropkeel.
ABOUT ME
I am 64, married, have two adult children and working as engineer for rf techniques at a physical research centre of the Helmholtz Association. I live close to the Elbe river in a suburb of Hamburg, Germany.
Sunday, 9 August 2015
Cabintop is Tight
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Building the Cabintop
For building the cabintop I couldn't relate on Dudley Dix's drawings, because I changed the hight to gain more headroom. Therefore I fitted the panels step by step to the bulkheads. In order to get harmonic bending curves I used 20x20 mm² spline-battens. Before glueing I aligned and fixed the panels with help of nail-plates.
| Illustration of building the cabintop in five steps |
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| In a first step the roof panel has been glued over the bulkheads. The 20x20 mm² spline-battens helped to achieve a harmonic bending of the panel. In a second step the side panel was fixed with nail-plates temporarily. Another spline-batten was used to define the chine curve. |
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| After cutting the chine curve the panel was glued and fixed with nail-plates until the epoxi has set. |
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| Cabintop after step 4 has been accomplished |
| Cabintop after step 5 has been accomplished |
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Thursday, 2 July 2015
Statistics
It is clear and obvious that I achieve more in summer than in winter.
In summer I can work longer in the evening due to the longer daylight.
In winter the progress is slowed down by low temperatures and darkness in the evenings.
Now that I've already worked more than 1,500 hours on the boat, I wanted to determine the difference between summer and winter times quantitatively.
It turns out:
- From September to April I worked on average 23 hours per month.
- From May to August I worked on average 46 hours per month.
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
Deck and Cabin under Progress
Thursday, 14 May 2015
1500 Hours Working Time Completed
Monday, 11 May 2015
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