Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

Brothers Oloff and Muir de Wet spent five

years building their own aluminium boat,

learning welding and construction

techniques from scratch and adapting the

design as they went along, as Oloff explains

in the final part of their inspirational story...

W

e sit in Hout Bay Yacht

Club, having brought

Ongemak round from

Cape Town. The forecast

warned of heavy weather in the

evening, but we and the other boats out

were surprised when, in a matter of

minutes, the balmy afternoon’s 10 knots

became 30 knots.

We were forced to put in two reefs very

quickly, and by the time we reached Hout

Bay it was approaching 40 knots.

Something like this is not a nice surprise,

but it was pleasing to find the boat felt safe

and handled herself well. Right now it is

raining and blowing at 50 knots, but

fortunately I’m looking out at this forceful

display of nature from the safety of the

clubhouse, with a beer in my hand.

Oloff de Wet reveals some of the lessons he and his brother Muir

learned during the five-year DIY build of their alloy sloop, Ongemak

Building an

aluminium sloop

Afloat at last after five

years of planning and

hard work

PART

THREE

Drill in hand, there are always a few

last-minute jobs to undertake

PRACTICAL