Cape Cutter sailboats: one design, four builders, and a brief that never changed
Cape Cutter is, in practice, a single boat: the Cape Cutter 19, a gaff-rigged pocket cruiser designed by Dudley Dix for a couple who wanted a shoal-draft trailer-sailer with the look of a traditional working boat. That one design has been built, in two different materials, by a succession of companies on two continents -- yet the design itself, per Dix's own studio, has never been licensed to more than one builder at a time, so the boat has stayed the same brief throughout.
Origins and ownership
Nick and Lyndsay Voorhoeve, who had spent years in the Bahamian charter business, brought their idea to South African designer Dudley Dix, according to Small Craft Advisor. Their brief, per Dudley Dix Yacht Design, called for a GRP production trailer-sailer with a traditional workboat image, plenty of character, shallow draft, and good sailing manners. Because the boats were to be built in South Africa and shipped to the UK, Dix has said he designed the Cape Cutter 19 to handle the boisterous seas and winds around the Cape of Good Hope -- a performance target set by the boat's own supply chain as much as by its cruising brief.
Cape Yachts built the first 55 hulls in Cape Town. From there, per Dix's own account, the company was sold and production moved to Honnor Marine in the UK, which has built the boat since 2003. Demand held up on both sides of that move: the GRP version sold 60 boats in its first two years on the UK market, while Dix Yacht Design took orders for 20 sets of plywood plans within nine months of finishing that design package. By early 2015, per a post on Dix's own blog, more than 125 GRP boats had been built in total, with plans sold for nearly 70 more to be built in plywood.
Ownership changed again around 2018: Honnor Marine was sold following its owners' retirement, and the moulds passed to a new company, Cape Cutter Marine, which moved production to Driffield, Yorkshire. That change also touched the plywood side of the business -- Dudley Dix Yacht Design had been free to sell CNC-cut plywood kits while Nick Voorhoeve owned the company, a right Honnor Marine withdrew once it took over. Dix's own design notes state that the Cape Cutter 19 has never been licensed for series production to any builder besides Cape Yachts. Most recently, per an announcement on the builder's own site, production has returned to Cape Yachts -- the latest chapter for a design whose builder has changed repeatedly without the design itself changing hands.
Construction through the eras
Two build paths have run in parallel since the design's earliest days. The production GRP boats use a hand laid-up solid laminate hull, reinforced with bilge runners so the boat sits stable when it dries out on a falling tide -- a detail that matches the shallow-draft brief Voorhoeve and Dix started with. The deck is hand laid up with a 10 mm balsa core, reinforced by marine plywood pads in load areas, with a nonskid finish moulded directly into the walk areas. Hull and deck join in a through-bolted "biscuit tin" joint using 316 stainless steel bolts.
Alongside the production boats, Dudley Dix Yacht Design has sold plywood plans for owners who want to build their own hull rather than buy one built. That version uses lapstrake construction over stringers and a plywood backbone, with the stringers notched into the bulkheads and the backbone locked into the bulkheads "eggcrate fashion." Dix has sold 56 sets of those plans, plus another 65 for the design's larger sister, the Cape Henry 21.
Who Cape Cutter is for
The Cape Cutter 19 suits sailors who want a small, shoal-draft, trailerable boat with the look and rig of a traditional working cutter rather than a modern production yacht -- and, given the plywood option, it suits amateur builders as much as buyers of a finished one. The design has proven itself well outside its home waters: one boat, "Bandoola," was built in Cape Town in 2002 for owner Jo Sinfield and then shipped 1,000 miles up Myanmar's Irrawaddy River. A UK-based owners' association has organized around the class as well; Dudley Dix noted in 2018 that it held an annual rally, with that year's gathering in Scotland.
