A MINI SPORTBOAT
The Didi Sport 15 design was commissioned by an Australian living in the same city as me in USA. A South African designing for an Australian, for building in USA. He built his boat with exquisite workmanship, taking his time with the project over a few years. When completed he took it to the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, where it took first prize in the sailboat division of the Concourse d’Elegance.
I can see nothing all around me. Georgian Bay is slow to warm this season, hence the thick fog. It is cold and damp in the exposed cockpit with a storm in the forecast. In spite the cold, I’m wearing just a ‘T’ shirt! You see, I’m not sailing from the cockpit but from inside a warm cabin. Snacks and controls at hand, I’m enjoying this bad weather in comfort. The ability to sail from inside with a 360° view is just one of the cool features my new Camp Cruiser design, Crow can boast!
An Adventure 'Sail and Oar' Cruiser Designed by John Welsford
Image Jan J Hein
I like to give a design a name that is suggestive of its aims, and this one was to be my very own ‘adventure boat’, intended for very long multi day coastal cruises, some of them in open water with sheltered anchorages far enough apart to make passages of several days quite possible.
The ski is now ready for the top and bottom ply skins to be attached. The plans call for the surfaces to be glued and also nailed ... probably not necessary to nail but the brass nails (escutshions) would look good under the varnish.