Dudley Dix is a yacht designer, of

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n origin, now based in

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, US. He graduated from the Westlawn School of Yacht Design. He is notable for having developed the "radius chine plywood" method as a basis for boat construction. Dix won the 1979 Cruising World Design Competition. Dix has designed yachts of many types (such as

monohull right A monohull is a type of boat having only one hull, unlike multihulled boats which can have two or more individual hulls connected to one another. Fundamental concept Among the earliest hulls were simple logs, but these were generally unstab ...

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

s and

trimaran A trimaran (or double-outrigger) is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls (or "floats") which are attached to the main hull with lateral beams. Most modern trimarans are sailing yachts designed for recrea ...

s) employing a variety of materials for the hulls (such as steel, aluminium and wood/epoxy composites). His building methods include cold moulding and radius chine plywood. The radius chine plywood method was developed by Dix himself, and many of his designs use this procedure. The radius chine plywood method enables fast, cheap construction of relatively lightweight vessels. Dix is particularly concerned that his designs are fully seaworthy. Dix has built many of his own designs for his personal use, including the Didi 38 ''"Black Cat"'' which he sailed from 1995 until 2000 (including three crossings of the South Atlantic). One of Dix's larger designs is the 55' DH550 ocean-going cruising catamaran, such as ''"Friends Forever"'' (built by Jean-Jacques Provoyeur and Richard Bertie).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dix, Dudley Living people Naval architecture 1949 births

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