New Links: 8/12/10 New BLOG from Benno & Marlene about Cruising in their Diesel Duck 41

October 2008. Kaya and I enjoying fine Turkish wine and perfect climate, in Turkey. Kaya owns Asboat.com Life is fine!

The Animal Rescue Site: Here's your chance to Do A Good Deed without spending a dime. Don't even have to get out of your chair! The Animal Rescue Site focuses the power of the Internet on a specific need — providing food for some of the 27 million unwanted animals given to shelters in the U.S. every year. Over 10 million animals are put to death every year in the U.S. alone because they are abandoned and unwanted. Each click on the purple "Click Here to Give - it's FREE". The Animal Rescue Site provides food and care for rescued animals living in a shelter or sanctuary. Funding for food and care is paid by site sponsors and distributed to animals in need at the Fund for Animals' renowned animal sanctuaries (including Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch in Texas and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in California), pet shelters supported by the Petfinder Foundation , North Shore Animal League, and other worthy animal care facilities supported by the GreaterGood.org foundation. 100% of sponsor advertising fees goes to their charitable partners. I've posted this link because I was told they aren't getting the "clicks" they need. Hell, it's free, so why not help out? When hundreds or better thousands of people do it every day a lot of animals get fed. I do it every morning when I turn on my computer....

Cruising with Benno & Marlene aboard their 41' DIESEL DUCK: (8/10) These folks built an aluminium 41 DUCK in Canada and headed south. So far they've explored the Carribean and circumnavigated South America. Aside from being entertaining, their writings are full of good tips.

Building The Sailing Ship (AKA POGO POGO) "Margaret Simone"

Building the SWAN 55: Peter is doinbg an interesting blog about building his ship.

Voyage of the 462 DUCK Doramac: Ruth Johnson's blog about cruising the South Seas in a Seahorse 462 DUCK.

Living In Turkey and watching Your DUCK being Built: Robin and Waren moved to Izmir Turkey in 2009 to watch Asboat build them a new 41-Plus DUCK. Robin created this blog which discusses their experiences.

Voyage of the Vicki Lynn: Track the trip of the 48 DUCK (see building series at http:dieselduck.com) as Vicki & Harry finally are able to head south.

The Bounty Boat Expedition: You'd think sailing the BOC three times, circumnavigating Anartica, flying an ultra light "kite" around Australia, and having a Seahorse Diesel Duck 462 built, rigged with a huge sailplan, and sailing through a typhoon, would be enough. It would be MORE than enough for most. Not Don though. His latest project is to recreate the feat that Captain Bligh accomplished, sailing an open 23' skiff across thousands of miles of Pacific. His equally fearless friend Chris Bray is in on it too. Gawd but it's hard work being Aussie....

The Seven Seas Cruising Association (SSCA): founded in 1952, is the world's largest and oldest organization devoted to ocean cruising and general liveaboard lifestyle. By joining you get access to their huge data base which includes detailed info about world wide ports, member tracking and good places to visit (member friendly), discounted marine stuff, a newsletter, an annual gathering in Florida called "The Gam", and full access to their informative web site. Marlene & Benno Klopfer who are cruising their 41 DIESEL DUCK, have been active members since 1985. They told me the SSCA has recently opened their membership to cruising power, and they are on the new Trawler Committee. Annual dues are quite reasonable. Check them out, and hopefully, join!

Distant Shores is a web site by a Canadian couple who travel around the world visiting and cruising on yachts and making video DVDs about it. But that's just part of it. They maintain a blog, put on seminars, and much more stuff of interest to boat people. They have a DVD available August 2008 which has great shots of Benno & Marlene's 41 Diesel Duck, down in the "Crib."

Ben's Logbook: Ben is a French guy, an artist, and a very clever web builder who created this blog. It starts with his adventures or perhaps better MISS adventures having a new 382 DUCK built in China, and will continue on with his cruise "south". Shades of Moitessier? Nah, Ben is far more social!

dieselducks.com I decided to make a site specifically devoted to my DIESEL DUCK designs. So, THIS site, dieselducks (note the plural!).com has all the poop about that rapidly growing family since I figured this site is already confusing enough! The DUCKS have worked out great and several have cruised all over the planet. If you like my power designs I think you'll find this site interesting! Of course, I'm not impartial....

Ducktalk Started in fall of 2005, it is devoted just to chat about the DUCKS. Anybody can join and participate! All you need is to just like DUCKS!

Don Kotts Marine Artist: I've been ragging my friend Don for years to get a web site up to show and market his art. Don spends to much of each year in the fishing bidness, but finally has decided to take more time for his paintings. He does custom work as well as commissions. He even does cartoons and Xmas cards! Don illustrated my Navigation book, in case you seen it. If not, you can buy it here of course! His site will give you a good idea of his versatility. Here's a couple of his things I especially like.

Asboat.com:is the site for a very large and versatile shipyard in Izmir, Turkey. Jurgen's 44 DUCK stopped there for a haul out on its trip back from China and the manager of the yard really liked her. One thing led to the next and now they show a DUCK on their web site and are actively looking to build more. Or any other custom design of mine for that matter. They are unusual in that they build in steel, wood, fiberglass, or aluminum. Their best prices are for steel but the other materials are proportionally priced and all are very reasonable. They build everything from big power cats that look like space ships to megayachts and of course those beautiful Turkish clipper bowed wooden charter boats. They don't mess around. They recently bid a complete 41 EVO Duck, saying it would be out the door in 4 months.

Building a Wood 38 Duck: Bill Zeuli hired Wayne Shibley Wooden Boat Works to build his 38, stretched to 40. Bill is working with him on it. This new web site is documenting step by step the who process. It's good to see a pro built WOODEN Duck going together! The yard is in Chicago.

Furledsails.com: is an Internet "Pod Cast" focused on cruising and recreational sailing. There's so much interesting stuff on "da net" and I only learned of this one when they asked if they could interview me. Quite flattering, of course. Anyway, it's an interesting deal even if their choice of content can be debated (!). I almost feel sorry for television these days. I watch very little of it anymore. Of course perhaps if there were less commercials? Dream on, huh....but meanwhile, you might enjoy some of the stories broadcast here on furledsails.com

Price Boat Company: Jerry Price built a wood 38 (Shown in the Photo Gallery section. This site details the boat and gives information about his yard.

bartenderboats.com: One of the most appealing designs ever done is George Caulkin's wonderful Bartender boats. At this writing George is in his 90s and to busy crabbing, fishing, and sailing his engineless 20 footer and roaring around in his V-8 powered 22' Bartender. He's far to busy to learn the net and market his designs in this New World net stuff. So, Bill Childs who like me is also crazy about Bartenders but unlike me has the energy to make a site for them and market the plans. Not only that, Bill is offering CNC cut kits for them, and even custom building new ones. This is great to see because now the Bartenders will get new exposure and a new generation will learn about them! Here's a photo of the 22 headed out across an Oregon river bar. The 22 was always my favorite and in August, 2005, I ordered a 22 hull (outboard version) from Bill! I'm going to finish it out to look JUST like this one in the photo.

Idlewild Expedition: is the Home Page of IDLEWILD, a 57' power cruiser (see her photos and design info in the STOCK PLANS section of this site). She's accomplished all sorts of adventures since her 2004 launch including just completing the longest non-stop passage ever done in a power yacht; 4,000 plus miles from Greenland to South Africa.

SeahorseYachts: Builders of the 46-2 and 38-2 Diesel Ducks in various models, as well as three 44 DUCKS, all which have gone cruisin'.

groups.yahoo.com/group/BackyardBoatbuilding2 This is a really good site because it is made of of folks actually BUILDING boats of wood and steel who share their information. I'm very flattered that the emphasis is on my designs. I have nothing to do with the site other than I enjoy following it myself. Sometimes I need to bite my tongue, but I notice that eventually issues get a logical answer and it seems best I keep my two cents outta it.

Trawlers And Trawlering: The new name for the old Trawlerworld site, and now an even better incredible free place which is becoming "the" internet info source about cruising under power. I'd rather it was called TROLLERS and Trawlers but that's OK! My friend Georgs has done an incredible job creating this thing. It's the creation of my friend Georgs who had previously set the sailing speed record from NY to SF, edited motorcycle magazines, and in general had a lot of fun specializing in nothing, and one day realized that cruising power made good sense. He created Trawler World, which in just a few years has become a huge deal with festivals around the country. As usual of us guys with ADD, he went on and created this. I wish I had his energy!

mindspring.com/~waltmur/Self-Steering/index.htm Walter Murray has created this wonderful site which will tell you all sorts of things about wind steering systems. I bet most of you didn't know that the "sailboat" windvane was invented by a French guy, to use on his POWERBOAT to single hand back to Europe from the US. In the 1930s he had single handed a sailboat across, then, decided to take a powerboat (40 something footer) home. Not wanting to have to steer the whole time, he invented the wind vane! I've never seen it used on a powerboat which is why the history is especially interesting. A funny follow up; when he arrived in England after the totally uneventful crossing, crossing, nobody believed he had done it; he had blown out of the water all the old ideas about what a powerboat could do (even though several others had done it but not single handed). So, they ignored the fact that he had done it, the marine press never mentioned it, and the sailing crowd continued feeling superior and all. Then WW 11 happened and yachting stuff go put on the back burner..... Anyway, this is a good informative site.

worldvoyagers.com/index.htm This site is about a voyage around the world on IWALANI, which is my old "JUPITER" and later modified to "OLGA" for the Building Book. These folks built her, modified her to their special interests, and are out having a fine time. This is the fourth of this design that I know of that are out doing serious cruising. She's a heavy boat, but apparently she does the job. The design was a joint effort (my first custom design!) between myself and Doug Gilson. He built her near Seattle in 1981 or so, I forget, and headed "south" where he still is I assume!

Wendall's 38' DUCK page is about the building of a 38 DUCK. Wendell had Custom Steel Boats, in North Carolina, build the hull. He trucked it to the Boston area and has been working on it since. This site is funny because when I first met him, he still used a rotary dial telephone and had NO interest in computers. Now, just a few years later, he not only has a computer, but made this very elaborate site.

Njordboats is the site for a wood boatbuilding firm in Slovenia. The owner graduated from a Finnish wood craft school, and is building beautiful wooden boats. At this date he is building the schooner ARCHIMEDES (see Stock Plans) for a customer. The photos show he's doing a beautiful job of it. This is a new address as of 2008.