How to build our Optimist kit in pictures

This has been one of our best selling kits,it took a lot of development time but they go together easy enough,we supply a fourteen page builders guide with each kit,this was writen up by Janet and Nigel after building a kit themselves,they CNC cut the boats now and really do have a hands on understanding of the entire process.

Optimist sail for sale

We have a very nice clean used North Sails Opimist sail that needs a new owner,it has been measured and is stamped as such,you can have it at half price of a new one,so just R785 or U$99,we can ship any place.

Davids Didi mini cruise building

We shipped out three Didi Mini Transats in March,one went to Freemantle,Australia,David the customer and also the builder has just sent some progress pictures of what he has constructed so far.

Thin water Ausi designed yacht takes on Loch Ness

Plans and a kit available from CKD Boats,we can ship world wide.

This is a nice story about one of Micheal Storers designs,designed in Australia but built in Holland,the boat was third in a Scotish regatta it entered.

A goat island skiff came 3rd in the prestigious Caledonian RAID event in Scotland, sailed by a builder from Holland.


Having sailed GISwerk only five times prior to our departure from the Netherlands for Scotland 2 weeks ago, the Scottish lochs and canals have truly shown us what a capable boat the GIS is.

On Loch Ness we were confronted with fairly strong winds (with gusts above 20 knots and a short steep 4 ft swell) which GISwerk handled beautifully and without much problem under full sail downwind. Probably not a very sensible thing but it definitely made for a most exciting and fast surf and gained us a first place in the leg!

In the rowing legs we ended a constant third, in the sailing legs we got in 1st – 5th. The winds are very unpredictable on the Scottish lochs: a force 2 can easily become a force 6 but might over a few minutes time dwindle to force naught. Some experience in “reading” the Scottish weather would be very helpful (one day in particular we had difficulties forecasting the winds resulting in tying in an unnecessary reef causing a big delay in finishing) as would be a few more days sailing the boat before entering an event such as Raid Caledonia.

We ended a tied second (out of five boats) in class 2 and overall ended a shared third place out of 9 competing boats.

What matters most however is that we had a blast, got to know the boat fairly well sailing and rowing the boat in a lot of different conditions, met some lovely people during the event and enjoyed the fine music, food and drinks the organisation had arranged for.

JOOST

Proteus 106 cat is now sailing

Left click on the picture to view full size and see more detail.
Rick on the beach at Thailands Koh Chang Island,with his Proteus 106 catamaran anchored out in the bay after a maiden voyage of some 120 miles.

This 35ft catamaran must be one of the best kit deals on the market,its based on around 135 sheets of plys and MDF boards,which are later removed,we cut all of this and also supply meranti wood for the boats stringers, the epoxy and glass cloth as per the designers materials list.

Note,the boat in the picture,at Koh Chang Island, was not made from one of our kits,it was made from templates which could add at least 400 man hours to the boats build.

Who wants to buy an external hard drive,not me.

This is what I purchased,before you buy any external hard drive please enquire about just what the warrenty covers,such as will it cover extraction of your saved data?

Well in reality I have bought one just recently,the reason being that as I use my PCs more and more,they are filling up with data and slowing the running down,so a friend suggests I buy an External Hard Drive,I can then down load my files and save space,freeing up the computer as I do so.This made sense so checking around I see that one store offers two such units,one with a one year warrenty,the other with a two year warrenty,sounds like a better choice to me?

We have a guy (lets call him John) who has done our PC installations for many years now,so after discussing what is on offer,he suggests another unit that is locally packed,it has a three year warrenty and the company doing the distribution are specialists at retreival of data from such 'black Boxes'as in fact the hard drive inside the locally packed casing, is an international design,thats what I was told anyway.

So our John brings me a nice carton with a locally packed External Hard Drive in it,the carton is proudly showing a picture of the South African flag,saying Packed in South Africa,or words to this effect,plus I know we have a three year warrenty.We connect it to my laptop,I plug it in to the power supply that came with it,John then switches on, tries a few things to ensure its working (there is no tell tale warning light) and he leaves,I continue to down load data I may want later,I then take it home and continue to download untill space is freeing up,later that evening I close down for the day.The next morning I try to find my data in the external hard drive,it will not open and keeps asking me do I want to 'Format' which of course will erase all data saved,trying two other PCs gives me the same result,so I call John who was soon at my office and discovers the same none working issues as I did,this is after less than 24 hours of my ownership,I ask john to take it back and get a new one,and also to ask the suplliers to extract my data and put it in the new external hard drive.

John contacts me the next day,the suppliers agree to replace the faulty external hardrive but refuse to extract the data for free,I complain and suggest John asks them again,this is again refused and I am told they sent him a quote to extract the data at around R3000,which about U$375!! By now John has taken the faulty unit to his own workshops and downloaded about 3 gigs of data he tells me,what this will cost me I have yet to learn but please let me warn you,a three year warrenty is not what we think,it only covers the hard ware,not the extraction of what you have stored in it,I advise potential buyers to always ask about this side of any warrenty and make their own judgement as to buying?

Ikarus,the full story

The first name of Icaria was Dolichi but through Greek mythology it became connected to Ikarus, the first man who succeeded to fly and commemorates his fall. According to myth Daedalus, a famous craftsman, was a prisoner of Minos, the King of Crete. In an attempt to escape, he made two sets of wings, one for himself and one for his son, Ikarus, and attached them with wax. Together they secretly flew away, heading towards Athens. Out over the sea, near Ikaria, Ikarus, became excited by the view, flew too close to the sun with the result that the wax melted and he plunged into the sea and drowned. Thereafter, the sea named after him, Ikario Pelagos and the island was named Ikaria.


E-mail: ikaria@ikaria.gr Copyright N. Michael info tel. +30 2273030202 fax +30 2273030600 e-mail: webmaster@aegean-news.gr

The first man to fly? Percy Pilcher RN.

Percy Pilcher.
Percy Pilcher's Flying Machine - programme summary
Could an unknown Englishman have been the first person ever to fly?

"I think he was just totally fascinated with the idea of flying"
Philip Jarrett, Aviation Historian
To mark the hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers inaugural flight, Horizon tells the remarkable story of Percy Pilcher.

He could have been the most famous aviator of them all. Four years before the Wright brothers, he had constructed his own aeroplane. But on the day it was due to take off for the very first time, something so terrible happened that he was denied the chance of ever flying it. So Horizon has rebuilt his long lost flying machine to see if Percy Pilcher, the British amateur, could have claimed the glory and been the first person ever to fly.

This film mixes dramatic reconstruction with fabulous contemporary scenes and gripping science. With a specially assembled team of historians, aviation experts and our own test pilot, Horizon painstakingly rebuilds Pilcher's flying machine and puts it to the test. The results will leave you cheering.



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We have probably all heard the tale of Ikarus who made himself into a bird by sticking feathers all over himself with wax,seems it worked very well too,then he got so close to the sun that the wax melted and he lost all his feathers as the wax melted with the suns heat,he fell to the ground of course,there is a message in this tale I am sure,wonder what it is?

Photos were taken by my good friend Notty,thanks mate!

As we know it the first man/men to fly was of course the Wright brothers,thats what we are toldin the history books,was this correct though? as a display at Stanford Hall in England, shows a man clearly flying in what was really a glider,this started in 1885 and continued through to 1899 but the day he was to demonstrate his power propelled air plane,he crashed his glider and was injured so badley that he died of his injuries the next day and this was before the Wright brothers started gliding in 1900 and then only made their record powered flight in 1903.

Percy Pilcher
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Percy Sinclair Pilcher (16 January 1866 — 2 October 1899) was a British inventor and pioneer aviator who was his country's foremost experimenter in unpowered flight at the end of the 19th Century. He was planning a flight with a motor-driven hang glider, but died in the crash of another glider before he could make the attempt.
Career

Percy Pilcher flying his Hawk hang glider. UK, 1897. Shown might be Miss Dorothy Pilcher, Percy's cousin who was towed in a flight.In 1891 Pilcher began work as assistant lecturer at Glasgow University and took a growing interest in aviation. He built a hang glider called The Bat which he flew for the first time in 1895;[1] the Bat had a double use of the triangle control frame (TCF) (or A-frame for hang gliders, trikes, and ultralights) as both a piloting device as well as an airframe part that doubled in kinposting utility. Later that year Pilcher met Otto Lilienthal, who was the leading expert in gliding in Germany. These discussions led to Pilcher building two more gliders, The Beetle and The Gull.[2] Based on the work of his mentor Otto Lilienthal, in 1897 Pilcher built a glider called The Hawk with which he broke the world distance record when he flew 250 m (820 ft) at the grounds of Stanford Hall near Lutterworth in Leicestershire, England.

Pilcher set his sights upon powered flight: he developed a triplane that was to be powered by a 4 hp (3 kW) engine; however, construction of the triplane put him heavily into debt, and Pilcher needed sponsorship to complete his work.


Funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London
Monument near Stanford Hall at the point where Pilcher crashed his gliderPilcher formed a company with Walter Gordon Wilson (later to become a successful motor engineer and inventor of the first tanks).


[edit] Death
On 30 September 1899, having completed his triplane, he had intended to demonstrate it to a group of onlookers and potential sponsors in a field near Stanford Hall. However, days before, the engine crankshaft had broken and, so as not to disappoint his guests, he decided to fly the Hawk instead. The weather was stormy and rainy, but by 4pm Pilcher decided the weather was good enough to fly[3]. Whilst flying, the tail snapped and Pilcher plunged 10 metres (30 ft) to the ground: he died two days later from his injuries with his triplane having never been publicly flown.[4]

He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.


[edit] Legacy
A stone monument to him stands in the field near Stanford Hall at the point where he crashed, and a full sized replica of his "The Hawk" glider is also displayed at Stanford Hall.


[edit] Renewal of interest
Pilcher's plans were lost for many years, and his name was also long forgotten except by a few enthusiasts. When the centenary of the Wright brothers' flight approached, a new effort was made to find the lost work, and some correspondence was found in a private American collection. From this it was possible to discern the general direction of his plans and the basis of his design. Based on Lilienthal's work, Pilcher understood how to produce lift using winglike structures, but at this time a full mathematical description was years away, so many elements were still missing. In particular, Pilcher was stuck trying to design a wing that could lift the weight of an engine, the aircraft itself and the occupant - each increase in wing area increased the weight so much that yet more lift was required, requiring a larger wing - a seemingly vicious circle. Pilcher's breakthrough, thanks to correspondence with another pioneer, Octave Chanute, was to stack smaller, lighter wings one atop the other in an arrangement we know today as the biplane or triplane. This allowed the wings to generate much more lift without a corresponding increase in weight.

In 2003, a research effort carried out at the School of Aeronautics at Cranfield University, commissioned by the BBC2 television series "Horizon", has shown that Pilcher's design was more or less workable, and had he been able to develop his engine, it is possible he would have succeeded in being the first to fly a heavier-than-air powered aircraft with some degree of control. Cranfield built a replica of Pilcher's aircraft and added the Wright brothers' innovation of wing-warping as a safety backup for roll control. Pilcher's original design did not include aerodynamic controls such as ailerons or elevator. After a very short initial test, the craft achieved a sustained flight of 1 minute and 25 seconds, compared to 59 seconds for the Wright Brothers' best flight at Kitty Hawk. This was achieved under dead calm conditions as an additional safety measure, whereas the Wrights flew in a 25 mph+ wind to achieve enough airspeed on their early

Kayak progress by Alain

Some while back we posted some pictures of customer Alains progress on his kayak,its not one of our kits,we only supplied his materials,this is fine by us,materials as they are or we can cut to size given a cut file and that you have paid for the plans.Alain must be nearly finished now as last week we supplied him with 4oz woven glass cloth and some more epoxy so that the hull can be skinned over.

Wanted a B and G 12 Volt Network auto pilot ram

Does anyone have or know where to find what is now quite and old bit of kit,it will power a yachts rudder when connected to my Network system.I am told that other makes will do the same job,Simrad,Furuno and Raymarine,others,its technical name is a Linear drive hydraulic ram,suitable for craft over 12 tons.Other parts of the same Network B & G autopilot also considered,repeaters and function control etc.

Contact me at roy@comlumber.com or phone on Cape Town 021 510 7206,if I am not in the office,please leave a message.

Tall ship the Bark Marques

This tall ship was in Salvador Harbour,Brasil in 1977,I was told they wanted crew to go around Cape Horn,I declined as I was going north and knew that nothing goes to windward better than a Boeing 747.

In 1971 Englishman Robin Cecil-Wright bought the Marques and had her extensively repaired and re-rigged in Southhampton, England. She saw use in movies, most notably Dracula, and in television shows such as the The Onedin Line and Poldark. In 1977 Mark Litchfield bought a one-half share in the ship. She was again re-rigged, this time as a barque, largely for her part in the BBC documentary on Charles Darwin as his ship, the HMS Beagle. At this time she was renamed the Bark Marques.

Sadley she was later lost with many hands:

In 1983 she sailed from Bristol, England, to Antigua in the Caribbean for use in charter tours during the northern winter. In the summer of 1984 she sailed to San Juan, Puerto Rico to compete in the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races.

The Bark Marques won the first tall ships' race, from Puerto Rico to Bermuda. The ship left Hamilton on the second race, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 2 June, 1984. On the night of 2 June the ship ran into a gale. In the early hours of 3 June she was hit by a sudden squall and a large wave, possible a rogue wave, and was knocked down onto her side. Although the ship had been converted to a sail training and charter cruise ship, she had retained the main cargo hatch from her days as a commercial vessel. When she was knocked down the main hatch was breached and water flooded into the interior of the ship. She sank in less than a minute, with the loss of 19 of her 28 crew members.

Surinam,the wooden house

Note the Rolls Royce (VW Beetle) to the left of the screen! click on the picture to view full size.

Rain and a lady in Surinam

We were both sheltering from a serious down pour,arriving at the right place at the right time to stay dry.

Vendredi 13,a very large yacht

Friday 13th,an unusual name to call a yacht of any sort,I found her in the dry dock at Martenique,its impossible not to be impressed!

In favour of AIS

Left click on any picture to view full screen size!

We sighted Texaco Brasil when she was not so far off,not quite on a collision course but close enough.

We were this close!

Those who do not have a radar would be well advised to invest in an AIS receiver,with ships known not to keep the best of watches on an ocean passage,its now your best form of defence as you will be alerted to the ship,the heading,speed and even its name will be supplied to you.If we had had such a device we would have called the tanker ship Texaco Brasil a long time before we saw her.