Dudley Dix is in the process of arranging a visit to the USA East Coast for the first half of October. It will be centred mainly on Chesapeake Bay and the Virginia Beach and Annapolis areas. There may be opportunities to discuss designs with you if you are in the area. If you would like to meet with Dudley, then please email us as soon as possible. We will be arranging the schedule to allow as many contacts as is practical.

Those who have recently visited our website may have noticed the international flags in the right hand margin of the opening page. They show each country in which we have boats being built or have had in the past. They now exceed 30 countries and counting. Ecommerce has permitted us to reach distant corners of the world where we did not dream of doing business 10 years ago.

We continue to make progress in our quest to offer really good service and facilities by electronic methods of commerce. We now have our own Credit Card Merchant Facility, which allows us to accept credit card payments without going through a 3rd party. This means processing of the transaction without undue delay and allows us to speed up our despatch of orders.

Another feature which we have introduced is the routing of our incoming orders through a specialist secure server which holds them in encrypted form until we download into our computer. This process allows the client to place the order by secure link, which lodges it on the secure server. We then access this server, again by secure link, to download for processing. At no time will an order be passed by unsecured email en-route from the client's computer to ours.

As further indication of our desire to be an honest and reliable ecommerce business, we are now a member of Netcheck, the online commerce bureau. Netcheck is an international service which is free to the consumer and does watchdog duty over the internet community for the mutual benefit of consumers and merchants.

Marintek, powerboat builders in Turkey, are expanding into sailboats. For their first venture they have selected one of our existing production designs, the TLC 19, which they will be producing as the Windy 580. You will remember her as the little boat which Anthony Steward sailed around the world in the only open boat circum-navigation ever made. The production boat has a lid, of course, as well as weekending accommodation for a family of four. A very neat and modern little package.

Marintek are tooling up at the moment for production. She will be introduced at the Istanbul Boatshow in January 2000.

The next production design on the board is also for Marintek. She is now in the preliminary design phase and the schedule allows for tooling up to be done during next year. She will be a very modern little cruiser racer, with comfortable accommodation suitable for the smaller bareboat charter market. Watch our website for further details.

Turkey has recently been struck by a devastating earthquake. All at Marintek and their immediate families are safe but they have lost loved ones, homes and possessions. Our best wishes go out to all at Marintek and we hope that they emerge from these difficult times stronger than ever.

"Slithermoon" is a Shearwater 39, one of the most beautiful built to date. Gary Back built her and has cruised her for a few years with his family. She has this week been sold to Douglas and Bernadette Bernon in Annapolis USA. Douglas is a medical doctor and Bernadette is editor of the renowned Cruising World Magazine. They live and work in Newport RI, which will be the new home of "Slithermoon" between cruises.

This happy occurrence brings me back to my roots because Cruising World Magazine had a hand in launching me into professional yacht design. As a hobbyist designer I became the winner of the Cruising World Design Competition in 1979, with my first ever cruiser design. Without that win, who knows, I would probably still be a quantity surveyor.

The long awaited cruising version of the Didi 38/40 is now available. On the same basic Didi 38/40 platform, you can now fit a more conservative masthead rig and a shallower cruising keel, reducing draft to 1.8m (5'11"). The foretriangle is the same as that of the fractional rig, so spinnakers, headsails and deck layout are unchanged. The mainsail is reduced to a more easily managed size and rig weight is lowered.

The keel is similar in detail but has a larger bulb to keep the centre of gravity low for cruising safety.

Some of these boats are being built with 18mm (3/4") hull skin instead of the standard 12mm (½"). This further increases the strength and stiffness of an already strong concept, producing a great fast cruiser.

This past week we were commissioned to draw a Mini-Transat design for a local client. It is to be modern in concept, in line with recent hull design trends for the class. The concept will concentrate on producing a light and uncomplicated boat in the interests of producing maximum performance on a small budget. Due to pressures on both designer and client, building will only start in the 2nd quarter of next year. Watch this space for further news on her.

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