Argie 15 A Boat with Multiple Personalities

The Argie 15 is our most popular design, with about 50 plans sold to builders worldwide every year. I designed it in 1988 for the Argus newspaper group in South Africa, for publication of the full plans in their newspapers around the country. The prototype was built by journalist David Biggs, who wrote their weekly DIY supplement, in which the drawings were first published. It has also been published in magazines in Australia and USA, with amateurs able to build from the articles. We can only record plan sales and have no idea how many have been built from those publications.

Newly launched Argie 15 prototype, Dudley at helm.

The Argie 15 started life as a large 3:1 dinghy, able to be rowed, sailed or motored. The design brief was for as large a dinghy as could be built from 6 sheets of plywood. To that I added the ability to be used for camp-cruising, so I laid out the cockpit to give enough length and width for two adults to sleep on air mattresses in the cockpit, under a boom tent.

Over the years that followed, many builders added side seats to make it more comfortable to sail than was possible with the thwart-type seating of the original design. Eventually I added information to the drawings for building with full-length side seats, which added another two sheets of plywood. These also increase safety for sailing in rougher water by reducing splash water entering the cockpit and adding flotation. For camp-cruising, the seats add watertight stowage compartments for clothing and food.

The Argie 15 has proven to be a very versatile boat, well beyond the scope of the original design. It was intended as a large open boat for family fun but has proven capable of so much more.

This photo of Nick Fairleys boat shows the capacity of the Argie 15 pretty well.

The late Colin Farlam, a larger-than-life character around the yacht clubs of Cape Town, liked to tell the story of his first sail in an Argie 15. He was visiting a friend at Zeekoevlei, the lake where I grew up and did most of my small boat sailing. The Zeekoevlei Yacht Club fleet was on the water, racing in quite strong conditions. There was an Argie 15 on the lawn and the friend said "Come, lets go race the Fireballs". Colins response was "We cant race them in that". They did "race them in that" and Colin was shocked. He told me that they could hold the Fireballs on all headings except that they sailed a fraction lower to windward. Not bad for a 3:1 family dinghy. But this 3:1 family dinghy can pick up its skirts and fly like no 3:1 family dinghy is supposed to do. Colin immediately bought one for himself and later declared to me that the Argie 15 was the best dinghy that he had ever sailed.

The Argie 15 has classic styling, with a springy sheer and good freeboard. That makes it a dry boat in lumpy water and well-suited to fishing in moderate coastal conditions. This was the plan of Pete Frielinnghaus when he fitted a centre console and 30hp outboard to his Argie 15. He reports that it can do more than 20 knots. Pretty good for a 3:1 family dinghy.

Pete Frielinghaus in his Argie 15 centre console fishing boat.

 After the 2004 tsunami, I was approached by a church organisation from California, asking if I had a design that could be used to help replace the decimated subsistence fishing fleets. I donated the Argie 15 design for as many boats as they needed to build. They cut plywood component kits and supplied the kits plus all other materials needed, as well as training, to allow fishermen to build the boats on the beach in India. I have no idea how many were built this way.

The Argie 15 would be a great boat for raid-type adventure sailing events. It has the load capacity to carry the crew plus stores, camping gear etc. It is fast enough to get there ahead of most of the competition. It is light enough to be portaged over short distances or trailed on a dolly for longer overland legs.

I have been promising myself for years that I will build an Argie 15 for myself. Somehow there has always been some other project or adventure in the way, so it hasnt happened. This would be a good boat to take to the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport. I must pull finger and build one to take to the show in the next year or two.

Construction is the most basic of basic boatbuilding methods, stitch-&-glue plywood. It uses 6mm plywood that is jointed mostly with fibreglass tape and resin. This method sometimes produces rather boxy shapes but the Argie 15 manages to be quite elegant. It can be built from plans only, with components drawn full-size from dimensioned diagrams on the drawings. An optional extra is to order full-size patterns that save the measuring work by supplying printed patterns of the components, for the builder to transfer onto the plywood.

Pre-cut kits of all plywood components are also available from suppliers in a few countries. Our USA kits are cut and shipped by Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis but must be ordered from us direct. For suppliers in other countries go to our kits page.

There are many sailing videos on-line of the Argie 15. A new one by Justin Philips of Nick Fairleys new Argie 15 sailing in about 12 knots of breeze, shows how responsive and quick it is, tacking on a tickey and accelerating very quickly out of turns. http://youtu.be/gNFx8FHGiww

To see our full range of designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/ .

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Hull Paint

The best way to finish a boat is to apply as many coats of paint as you can afford.  So far I have applied close to a half gallon of paint to the hull (5 coats).  Im going to keep applying paint until I run out. That should be about 12 coats at this rate. That should suffice.

Religion, politics, and boat paint are the top three most controversial subjects in the known universe.  I spent months reading what everyone had to say on the subject. There are a dizzying array of paints available, all with their own sets of pros and cons.  Every type of paint has its proponents and critics. In the end, I decided to go with Porch and Floor enamel. Porch and Floor enamel is the one paint that most people seem to agree, (more or less),  is a perfectly fine paint to use on a boat.

On my last build I used Interlux Brightside.  Brightside is terrific paint.  I was very pleased with the results. It goes on smooth, levels very nicely, covers well, dries hard, but its somewhat expensive.

I read numerous times that Porch and Floor enamel is essentially the same thing as Brightside at a fraction of the cost.  John Welsford also recommends alkyd (oil-based) enamel paints.  So I decided to give it a go. Remember, the best way to finish a boat is to apply as many coats of paint as you can afford.

Interlux Brightside paint is a polyurethane alkyd enamel that costs about $110/gal at the local West Marine.

Ace Porch & Floor paint is a polyurethane alkyd enamel that costs $27/gal at the local Ace Hardware.

After using both, I honestly cant tell the difference.

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100 000 page views

Its hard for me to believe, but this blog just passed 100,000 page views.

When I first set up this blog I honestly didnt think anyone would read it.  I dont consider myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination. In the engineering profession we are taught to be brief and to the point. To present the facts and figures.  Anything more is an unnecessary waste of peoples time. There is a reason that there are very few novels written by engineers. Nor do I consider myself a very good sailor, or even much of a boat builder.  Ellie is only the second boat Ive ever built.  What could I possibly have to offer a community, most of whom seem to have more knowledge and experience than I?

But maybe the reason this blog has had so many page views is for that very reason. Sure, everyone values expert advice, but its also nice to read stories about the adventures, and misadventures of your peers.

Who knows?  All I know for sure is I am humbled and honored that so many are interested in anything I have to say.

Id like to thank you all for tuning in.  I hope I can continue to hold your interest in the future.

Oh, and to celebrate this milestone, Ive brightened up the place a bit.  Hope you like it.

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Bathroom update

All the foam in the bathroom has vanished behind the finish work.

I had some green bead board left over from the kids cabin and installed that for the ceiling. I think Ill tone the green down a little and paint it a more neutral color such as a tan. The access panel for the 4" exhaust fan is finished along with the port light trim ring. I also finished the trim work around the cabinet. Its so nice not to see foam anymore.

Since the ceiling and ceiling trim is installed there was no reason not to install the shower fixtures. The shower is now functional including the wiring of the shower sump. I still have to address the faulty sump switch, but someone told me Rule has an excellent replacement policy and as long as the switch is less than a couple of years old, theyll replace it with no questions asked.

I have the hatch framed in out of Cherry, so Im ready to fabricate the hatch that accesses the shower sump and valves that direct the sump discharge. Im going to install a new floor in the bathroom as Im not happy with the Cherry plywood I have under the composting toilet. The fit is less than great, and it bothers me. I ran into a hard wood floor installer I know the other day and he has enough scrap of Brazilian Cherry in his shop that will do my floor. I only need about 15 square feet and the few dollars a square foot I"ll pay him is extremely fair to me.

I installed one 7 watt LED can light in the bathroom. In a perfect world, another light would be ideal, but the one light does the job and gives the room a nice glow. All the lights on the boat are controlled by wall switches, and I prefer that much more than having a switch on the light. The can light pivots, so we can direct light either in to the shower or in to the cabinet above the toilet.

I think the next move after I complete the bathroom is to do some DC electrical work on board. I want to get the battery cables installed along with the battery control panel for my three battery banks. I can now install the lower air conditioner along with the duct work and then button up the starboard chase way.

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Key West to the Dry Tortugas in a Marsh Cat

Two of Dorymans friends from Maryland completed a trip from Key West to the Dry Tortugas at the end of 2012. This is the second time Mike Wick and Kevin MacDonald have made this voyage, so theyre seasoned. The impressive thing is how they did it in a fifteen foot Marshcat catboat! The Dry Tortugas are seventy miles West of Key West, Florida.

Mike Wick tells the story of himself and Kevin in Little T :

Second trip to the Tortugas with a stop at Fort Jefferson
By Mike Wick

I drove to Kevin’s house on Friday night so we could make an early start the next morning. We left Frederick, Md., at 5:00 am Saturday December 8, to beat the traffic around Washington D.C. We drove south 1,240 miles pretty much non-stop and arrived at Oceangate Marina at 2:00 am Saturday and grabbed some sleep in the boat. After waking we settled with the marina and had a quick breakfast. The television told us that the weather window was good for another go, so, before 9:00 am Sunday, we launched and were off. The harbormaster was a little skeptical about the passage but when we told him about the February trip, he just shrugged and said "Timing is everything". He’s right. We were under pressure of time this vacation and had planned for a figure-eight loop around the lower keys, but, really, both of us were primed to go do the Dry Tortugas passage again. As long as we had the weather we really wanted to repeat our February passage.

In a light breeze from the northeast, we rounded Key West and were swept down on Kingfish Shoal by a strong south going current. We just barely missed the shoals around Cut "A" range markers. By reading the water we worked north enough to fetch the gate south of Mule Key that begins the Lakes Passage. There’s a lot of shallow water on Lakes Passage. It is fairly uniform in depth except for Gates off Mule Key, Archer Key, and Boca Grande. The channels are well marked and easy to see. There was quite a crowd at the protected beach on the northwest corner of Boca Grande Key. Most were high speed flats fishing boats nosed up on the beach.
We entered Boca Grande Channel in a light easterly with deceptive visibility. We approached Gull Rocks and were within a mile and a quarter of the Marquesas without seeing any sign of them although they are quite large and high. Then the fog lifted and there was land everywhere to the north of us. There are random brain coral bricks about a half-mile off the Marquesas, so it is good to keep a sharp lookout and maintain some offing. There is a grand archipelago of mangrove islands surrounding a large well protected Mooney Harbor. We were warned about mosquitoes but there is no fresh water, so no bugs. In fact, in two trips we’ve found no bugs anywhere.
It is tempting to anchor inside Mooney Harbor but we were anxious about the second leg, so we anchored outside just to the west. This provided good protection from the usual easterly winds. Key West is far enough south so the tradewinds are well established. The winds vary from northeast to southeast most of the time. We ate quickly and turned in. Kevin said "Whoever wakes first wakes the other. "

It was a beautiful night with great stars. Monday morning I woke first at 2:30 am and then woke Kevin. We had anchored a little too close to land and at low tide had some trouble with grounding on our way out. A nine mile flasher on Cosgrove Shoal guided us to the deeper water and we were on our way in a light easterly. I was steering by Orion to keep us south of the Quicksand but a strong set to the north brought us back on the shallow bank. At one point, I heard the tide rushing over a shoal spot but our catboat had plenty of water everywhere on that bank.

The problem was that the Quicksand is a bombing and strafing range for the Navy boys at Pensacola. There are unlit, rusty targets at random places throughout. In February, we had found some in the dark and again, just at dawn, I saw unlit and twisted pilings close onboard to starboard. Sunrise is always is a comfort, after an early start.

It was a beautiful day for the big push. Wind was from the southeast and mild. Rebecca Shoal was abeam at 9:30 am. We were more than halfway to our destination. At 11 am we sighted Yankee Freedom III, the daily ferry from Key West, passing to the north of us.

We had both my Garmin 76 Cx and Kevin’s more basic GPS. Either set had plenty of information for this kind of trip. We just kept adjusting for tide and observed the set on passing crab pots and the plot on the little screen. By 12:30 pm we had made landfall on Fort Jefferson, the lighthouse on Loggerhead Key, then east and Hospital Keys. By 1:30 pm we anchored off the dinghy beach in the Garden Key anchorage.

Being a bit tired of our own cooking we rushed for our wallets and waded ashore to buy our lunch from the ferry. We had experienced a fifty mile passage at 4.8 knots. We were glad to have left early and were halfway on our journey.

In the afternoon, we wandered around in the cool shade of the fort, talking to tourists, the rangers, and stretching our legs. One ranger remembered us from our February visit and was interested in general about small boat passages. We then waded back aboard and anchored for a night of wonderful star gazing at the anchorage. Jupiter was close to the Pleiades.

On these trips we always seem to be able to sleep from dusk to dawn, even if it is more than twelve hours. We woke in the morning to find a lovely reaching wind. Feeling the pressure of time we turned to each other and said, "YEP". By 8:00 am we were on our way again. When you are on top of the mountain you shouldn’t turn down a gift from the gods.
It turned out not to be quite the gift we hoped for though. A beautiful broad reach near hull speed brought us most of the way to Rebecca Shoal. The breeze fizzled and leaving us becalmed near Halfmoon Shoal in the late afternoon. We tried our best but knew we had to use the outboard and adjust course north in order to come in on the Marquesas from the north.


That was the best nighttime approach and we aimed to snug in for the night on the northwest corner of the Islands. It was well after dark when we sighted the one second flasher on the tower between New Ground and the flasher on Ellis Rock. We would use this as a turning mark for our approach. We were anxious to anchor for the night with lightning all around us but we had to make a careful approach to avoid various obstructions that were on the chart, such as submerged platform ruins and a mile wide circle of pilings. We got closer to the flasher on Ellis Rock but it wouldn’t appear.

We were within a quarter mile of our waypoint and still couldn’t see the light, so we decided that it was time to believe either that the buoy had been struck or the light had failed. I couldn’t see to steer, (I am scheduled for cataract surgery in a month), and so I held the flashlight and had Kevin steer first east along a latitude line then south along a longitude line to clear all the charted obstructions. Even with this precaution, I still sighted two large rusty pylons close to port, though Kevin couldn’t find them with his light. Still, I knew they were there and they made me anxious. I got my training as navigator of a deep draft navy freighter and this one foot draft catboat was a different kind of piloting altogether.

We were at anchor and in our sleeping bags well into the night, when I asked Kevin what the time was. His reply was" nine thirty." It didn’t seem like nine thirty. Next morning, Wednesday, I woke with the calm of dawn and after looking around called Kevin. No pylons, no pilings, no flasher but a beautiful double rainbow to the west. No rain but high humidity. My obstructions had disappeared with the night but Kevin forgave my anxiety. The strenuous part of our trip was over.

We caught a whisper of a southeasterly breeze through an intricate channel into Mooney Harbor. We sailed as far as we could around the harbor, a chance to breathe now that we are down off the mountain. Once we had found all the parts of that sector that we could float in, we went outside and found a nice beach to swim and explore off the boat for a bit. In the interim, the wind had picked up rapidly and we used the chance to tuck in a single reef on the beach. A fast crab across Boca Grande Channel brought us in a little north of Boca Grande.

We found the lakes passage a little too shallow for upwind work with any centerboard, so we ran off to the north and searched for an anchorage. First we tried Cottrell Key, off the Northwest Channel leading into Key West, but there were dive boats and mooring balls. So we figured they didn’t want any catboats interfering with their diving. We crossed the middle ground and found a nice little anchorage just off Fleming Key.

We had company but nowhere as much company as you would find there in February when the snowbirds had had more time to really flock south. The insurance companies insist they have to stay north of Norfolk until the first of November to keep them away from hurricanes. After Sandy it seems as if that wasn’t the right plan this year. There is something to be said for having boats that can easily be trailered instead.

Thursday brought a calm morning for inspecting the fleet in Frankfort Bight, and a run to the truck for some changes of food and clothing. Then we took advantage of the brisk norther to run east along the weather shore of Stock Island, Boca Chica, Geiger Key and into Saddlebunch Harbor. The wind was quite stiff and Saddlebunch offered little protection from a north wind but we finally found a good lee up next to the Route 1 Bridge tucked under Snake Key. There was traffic noise but no waves. We slept fine.

Friday was overcast and windy; a typical norther, so we made a fast passage back to Oceangate Marina and headed for home. 210 miles in six days.

Photos courtesy of Mike and Kevin. Thanks, fellas!

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Progress Report Stone Horse Belle Starr

Wouldnt you know? The last work session on the Stone Horse, Belle Starr was during a snow storm. Now, you should understand, it doesnt snow very often in the lower elevations of the Pacific Northwest anymore. Yet, here it is a month later and guess what? Yes its snowing.

This makes for a challenging outdoor work situation when most of the repairs involve epoxy and the rest of the work is sanding and painting.

One huge benefit from the cool weather is, the epoxy cures very slow. This means that glue applied yesterday is still pliable today and is easy to shape, form and finish.
There are tricks to successful use of epoxy in cold weather so be warned, dont do this at home unless you are willing to accept the occasional failure of your material.

The last few days have seen some progress in the repair and rehab of Belle Starr. This is not a restoration project as we so often see in the Doryman boatyard. Belle Starr is in great shape for a 30 year old boat.

You may think differently from the photos but often, long before an owner decides to sell their boat, maintenance falls to a minimum. It is not unusual to see a fine wood boat, only a couple decades old, with serious problems. In this case a few yearly haul-outs were neglected and it is a tribute to the builder that the boat held up so well.













As noted earlier, the bowsprit and boomkin needed to be replaced. In the process of researching the development of the Stone Horse, I discovered that the original plans called for a plank bowsprit.

This is good news! Im not too fond of hanging out there, over the deep blue, on a stick.

To supplement the safety factor, Belle Starr will soon have a bow pulpit, which for some inexplicable reason, she didnt have before. A wide flush deck with no life-lines or handholds seems precarious for the single-hander, though I find the sparse, clean lines aesthetically appealing.
















This boat has a bridge deck in the cockpit. Its about the same level as the galley, down below. When rot developed in the main bulkhead from the cockpit deck, as it so often does, it traveled across into the cabinet on the other side.







This is an excellent opportunity to install a new sink where Belle Starr had a simple plastic pan. (May I mention that it is wonderful to have a project that can use some of the stuff that has accumulated in the material storage shed? Its a regular chandlery out there!)






This was a tricky repair; a puzzle. All of the pieces were glued-up at the same time and each had to be installed in the correct order. There is a piece of the deck missing from under the teak overlay that you cant see here. Talk about a challenge!

Once again, the cool weather slows the epoxy cure to a crawl, giving plenty of time to get it right.

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Design 323 Hydrolite Dinghy

Details are sketchy at best for this design. Heres what we think we know. George Barnes of the Skaneatales Boatworks of Skaneateles, New York, invented a glue for cold molded boat construction. We were hired to design the dinghy you see here, named the Hydrolite. Eight Hydrolites were built using an autoclave. The boats were built of mahogany. The year was 1940.

The glue that he invented was later sold to the US Navy to build PT Boats.


Here are the plans we pulled off our microfiche files. Note the gear associated with the rig, centerboard and tiller was completely omitted in the images you see here.


I include the lines as they are interesting. Comparing them to the images however, the beautiful curvature at the transom was eliminated.

Principal Dimensions
LOA 8-0"
LWL 7-9"
Beam 3-11"
Draft 0-5"

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