Geoff's Tropic 14 (Australia)

Its great to see another Tropic 14 being launched, this time Geoff from Victoria. What a top job !

He writes:

Here she is in the water and the video I did up explaining a few things about the build and with the boat up and running. Let me tell you, the saying never work with kids or animals when film making is true!

Here's a great video he made showing how the boat complies with the Australian Builders Plate standard.

To see more of this design, please click HERE

Pat's Magnum 10 (Australia)

Great to see we have yet another launching, this time from Pat in Tasmania and his Magnum 10

Pat writes:

The big day finally, arrived, after all the rain and high winds we have had here in Tassie there was a break in the weather in the Sunday morning. Loaded the boat on the trailer and off we went.

Since we have had a lot of flood waters we had to clear dead wood and rice grass away to put the mighty MAGNUM in and then went for a row around.

First impressions; 

1/ It sits nice and high and relatively easy to row. Bonus.

2/  Mounted the 6hp Johnson on and loaded up with safety gear, boat sat evenly balanced

3/  Started the johno 4th pull after 5 years (not bad), idled around to get the feel of it.

4/  Slowly poured on the throttle and got it up on the plan. Man does it go when you are by yourself. Just enough power for 2; for 3 I would recommend a 10hp

I am very happy with the MAGNUM after all the effort that went into building it. Even the smaller projects boats can give you a huge amount of satisfaction. 

Thank you to Mark for the time in designing the Magnum and to everyone that has given me advice over and good wishes during the build. 

Phil's RipTide CX-457 (Australia)

 It was great to hear from Phil as he launched his RipTide CX-457 the other day.
He writes:

Hi Mark,
Watching your web site over the last twelve months and then suddenly, the RipTide CX457came out of nowhere and I thought "I am going to have a go at building this boat".

Having never built a boat before and after mine had been stolen two years ago, the want to build this one was to the MAX. When the plans arrived, I found them really easy to read and I began to build.

Mark helped me through the parts that I didn't quite understand, but they were easy once I had talked to him. I am so glad I was told about Bowdidge Marine Designs by Geoff Lord, our previous sand paper representative.

With the Builders plate and motor on, registration was easy. With Great Excitement the day had come to launch her. Eight months of building and now it was time to try out my boat. My Riptide was launched at 1.30pm and I headed straight out to Jumpingpin bar to try her out.

She handled like a dream, taking the bad 20 knot NNW wind head on and while crossing the bar, all the time I felt really safe in the boat. The RipTide handled better than the boat that had been stolen from me two years prior. I am over the moon about this boat, it's got so much potential! With Marks help from all of this, I now have my boat back and... I had a great time building it as well. 

Can't wait for next weekend... I'm going fishing! 

Regards Phil Martin 

Brisbane. QLD 

Top one Phil.
Great to hear you love the boat and the way it handles the open water, especially when your wanting to go fishing.
Love it

Duncan's EdgeTracker 426 (New Zealand)

 Its great to see Duncan from NZ launching his new Edgetracker 426.
What a beautiful job he did building her.

He writes:
I only went out for a short blat, I only got onto the water at about 6 pm and the boys have school in the morning so I couldn't make changes and go out again. The boat handles the chop very well!

Here's a few photo's

Its great to see yet another EdgeTracker 426 splashed

Top Job Duncan !!

To see more of this design, Please click HERE

Tom's Mushulu 12

 

Making the decision whether or not to build or buy was very easy for me, I found Mark through his web page, rang him and with a great deal of enthusiasm he explained how easy it would be for me to build the Mushulu 12 or 14. The cost of building was also very cheap and you also had the excitement knowing that you will build something with different shapes, sections and curves and once built, it will float! As a carpenter this all gave me much excitement and I was ready to start.

To all of you reading this, I can honestly say that the build was very easy. Anyone who is good with their hands, who is patient and wants to achieve a high quality product will find this project very enjoyable and complete it with ease. When I had the entire boat formed and glassed, I decided that I wouldn't just paint the boat. I would detail it with as much exposed timber as possible. The bulkheads would be in clear veneer with solid edging with solid doors, the front seat and anchor hatch would have inlays in a contrasting colour and the boat would have a sole with contrasting colors. Also the rubbing strake would have timber inlays and the entire boat would be a pearly white color with as much chrome as possible, as it had to look like it was made for a classy yacht. This I hoped would make it easier to sell. The things I didn't enjoy as much as others was obviously the sanding of fiber glass, but all in all it was very enjoyable. 

It would be great to be able to build full time, not part time as the stages would be completed faster and certain elements would be cheaper. For the next build I intend to build two boats at the same time as this will save me time and money. I will be ready to build a larger vessel as the build stages of this boat carry on to the next one.

Tom

And to my good friend Mark, we haven't yet met face to face, but I'm sure we will one day. Just so you all know when reading this, Mark is not just someone who you buy the plans from. He is the person you will be able to contact at any time and any day regarding your build. His web page is full of information and each boat has its own build stages of previously built boats. So when you start out building, you are surrounded by photos of each stage of construction and with your plans in your hands, you also have a visual library of the construction stages. If you still need help, you can just call him and he will explain everything so that you understand ! This makes it so easy and stress free!

Thank you Mark for making the dream possible.

Tom Macens.

Bob's Sea Strike 16 (Australia)

 Its great to see yet another Sea Strike 16 launching.

Here' s a few photo's of Bob's boat taken on that day. Bob was a first time boat builder and "WOW"... Top finish mate.

She looks great !

Clintons Sandy Strait 14 (England)

Its great to see another launching today, this time from Clinton and Nikki from the UK.

He writes:

Well chaps she's in. Great day we even managed to catch a fish!!!

It was worth all the effort. Had a brilliant time. Boat was even better. Had lots of comments…. all good. We had a few envious stares when launching and retrieving, it was so easy ....could even be a one man job. Perfect for UK conditions.

The swell was 2 to 3 feet and as long as you kept pointy end towards the swell you stayed dry. 25hp is more than adequate got on the plane in less than 5 seconds.

Loads of deck space and we had a top speed recorded on phone of 32 knots when the swell dropped.

I backed off I got brown trousers....

Weather was a balmy 12 centigrade but it was well worth all the effort

Top marks Mark. We are delighted

The History of the Mushulu 12 and its name

 

Years ago when we used to live on our 43 ft yacht, we were in Cairns at the time building a multihull for a client. Anchored in front of us was the 35 ft Trimaran owned by a couple called John and Jan. Well… they had this Niad inflatable dinghy where the side sponson's had a habit of going flat all the time.

One day they popped around with set of plans for a flat bottom skiff, asking could we build this dinghy for them. Taking one look at it I commented that as  tender, it was useless and we could design and build something far better, something where your not pounding and ripping your spine out through the roof of your mouth. They agreed and over the next couple of days I drew up this small dinghy and taking it around... they loved it.

Just up from the Coconut slipway, there was a farmer (Ted) who agreed to let us use one of his sheds, so we moved our boat up there and began building it. As usual, other yachties heard that we were building this dinghy for John and Jan and would pop around to have a look.

“Who the dinghy for?” they would ask

“Mushulu” Id reply

“Oh...Ok”

You see, when you live on a yacht, no one knows your last name. The name of the boat “becomes” your last name. In this case it was John and Jan from Mushulu...the “name” of their Trimaran. Now you know where the name comes from.

As for the design itself, you see, as a tender, your boat is akin to a work truck.. With fuel runs, water funs, shopping runs and not including the exploring and fishing, tenders get hammered hard. One of the biggest problems with the majority of dinghies is the freeboard is too low and they are heavy. Doing all these things and more, any water or waves when loaded has a habit of slopping over the side. (Nothing worse than having wet shopping bags I can tell you). So the first thing I designed into the Mushulu was high sides.

They also have to be light, but not too light as it makes for poor sea keeping. They also need to have loads of internal space for carrying things ( when doing a water run, I used to carry 8 x 20 litre jerry cans in ours. That's 160 litres) and…. when swamped, it must float level.

You would not believe how many times over the years where I saw dinghies where they had been left down for the night and a huge thunderstorm or heavy rain would come during the night only to see these dinghies with their outboards attached…sunk and lying on the bottom. With ours, if it rained, the dinghy simply filled (still floating level) and the excess water would simply drain out over the top of the transom. All I had to do was jump in, bail the water out and 10 minutes later …go wherever. No problems.  It was surprising how many “Mushulu’s” we built for various yachties over the years when we lived on our yacht. It was a proven design and it work like magic not only as a work truck, but also as a fishing and exploration dinghy..even offshore.

Anyway… after eleven years of cruising throughout Australia and Asia (we were in Singapore preparing the boat for a cruise to Japan when Sept 11th happened, everything changed. The whole mood of cruising took a different outlook and things were no longer the same.

So with this in mind, we sold our 42 ft Catamaran  and moved back ashore. It was here that I found my old “Mushulu 12” plans (the original) and later when we started BMD, we decided to bring the design out as a part of our plan portfolio.

Anyway, there it is...

The history of the Mushulu series and its name