We recently caught up with well-known small-boat designer, Dudley Dix, to ask him five questions.
Which other designer(s) have inspired or perhaps influenced your own work? There were many designers who inspired me, each for their own reason. E.G. (Ricus) van de Stadt, for his high performance wood and plywood designs, as well as his very clearly detailed drawings for amateur builders. The first big boat that I built was one of his designs and I have always attempted to attain a similar standard of detailing. L Francis Herreshoff for his wonderful styling, influencing my classically-styled designs like the Shearwater 45 and Hout Bay range of designs. Ted Brewer for his very practical metal designs. Bill Garden for his beautiful drawings. Bob Perry and Chuck Paine for their practical and pretty cruisers. Phil Bolger for his lateral thinking and showing me that drawing interesting boats that are off the beaten path will contribute to a career in boat design.
Which of your designs is your personal favorite, and why? This is a difficult one, I have a few favorites in different size ranges. My all-time favorite must be the Didi 38 because it did such a great job of helping to build my career. My own Black Cat was the prototype, which I built in my garden in Cape Town. I raced her twice across the Atlantic to prove the radius chine plywood construction method that I developed with the design. I crossed the Atlantic on her three times before selling her. She has now crossed the Atlantic 6 times in 29 years and is the foundation on which my Didi range of designs is built, as well as my 43 to 55ft plywood catamaran designs. We have sold plans for approx. 550 boats to these designs worldwide. In smaller sizes, my favorite is the Cape Henry 21, a very quick little trailersailer with lots of character. She has sisters from 19 feet to 36 feet.
What’s new or on the drawing board presently? (Can we get a sneak peek?) Much of the past year has been filled up with developing the Naskeag 16, with very detailed 3D modelling to allow creating high-quality photo-realistic images for publication in Wooden Boat magazine. In August I was in Maine to teach a class at Wooden Boat School, building the prototype of this new design. Also fitting into that time was designing bigger and smaller sisters to the Inlet Runner 16 garvey powerboat, now covering three sizes from 14-18ft. The latest addition to the Cape range of lapstrake cruisers is the Cape Canso 23, designed for a Canadian client. His boat was professionally built and is already sailing in Nova Scotia.
What boats are in your personal collection, and which ones do you use the most? I have the prototypes of two of my designs. They are a 16ft skin-on-frame kayak and the plywood Paper Jet. I also have a plywood Argie 15. My favorite is the Paper Jet, for the exhilarating reaching and surfing speeds and the closeness to the water.
Are you noticing any themes in terms of the direction of small-boat design with regard to: Purpose, propulsion, materials or techniques? COVID reawakened interest in amateur boatbuilding in many countries. Amateur projects had been in decline worldwide for 15 years, except that sub-20ft has remained reasonably buoyant for plywood designs. In general, there now seems to be a lot more interest in wooden boats, with even some high-image racers being wood construction or a composite of wood and glass or carbon. My own most recent launchings of wooden boats have been a Didi 120 (12m/39’4”) in Australia and a Didi 950 (9.5m/31’2”) on the Great Lakes, both plywood racer/cruisers. •SCA•
Five Questions for Dudley... when I read my email my first thought was it was a poll of sorts - what five questions did we have for Dudley? Not trying to start anything here as my only thoughts are, about his designs, I want to be 22 again and get out on the Paper Jet and tick off some 49'ers - then build the Cape Henry 21 and get lost for a year or two or three! Once I got my head out of the fiberglass production models it was Dudley, Vivier and John Welsford that lit up my brain. What were the differences, what did I "need" and what could I do about it! Oh if I could only have lived my 42 working years around boats, anything boats - as most of you have... Hoping you are well Dudley and thanks for moving stateside.