Design
DH550
Designed by Dudley Dix
A 16.75 m (55 ft) cruising catamaran designed jointly by Dudley Dix and catamaran builder Philip Harvey. It is built in radius chine plywood and epoxy, the method Dix developed on his Didi monohulls. Overall beam is 8.7 m, displacement 12,500 kg, sail area 1,437 sq ft, with twin 50 hp diesels and a choice of daggerboards or shallow cruising keels. Boats of this design have crossed the Atlantic and Pacific, and kits come from Exo Marine.
Radius chine plywood is aimed at amateurs, but the scale here is that of a small yard project and four were in build before the first was launched. Expect 12,000 hours or more as a rule of thumb. Measured medians from build logs appear below.
What building a DH550 actually takes
Medians from the build logs kept on this site, not the designer’s estimate. Nobody has logged this boat here yet, so they are empty until the first builder does.
Those medians firm up as more people log this boat.
Builds of this boat
Nobody has logged a DH550 here yet.
If you are building one, yours becomes the reference: the page the next person building this boat finds when they search for it. One photo and one line is a valid first entry.
Start the first log of this boatBoats like this one
Same type, closest in length.
| Design | Plans from | LOA | Logs |
|---|---|---|---|
| DH550 Charter | Dudley Dix Yacht Design | 54′ 11″ (16.75 m) | 0 |
| Acquinus c57 | Dudley Dix Yacht Design | 57′ 0″ (17.37 m) | 0 |
| Spirited 480 | Spirited Designs | 14.8 m (48′ 7″) | 0 |
| Crossover | Spirited Designs | 14.74 m (48′ 4″) | 0 |
| Dix 470 | Dudley Dix Yacht Design | 46′ 9″ (14.24 m) | 0 |
| Dix 430 | Dudley Dix Yacht Design | 43′ 2″ (13.15 m) | 0 |