prv
Well-Known Member
I've posted here before about my tender problems. Essentially, Kindred Spirit is fairly small, with a short coachroof, a mizzen which sweeps the stern, and very limited locker space. So it's always been a challenge to find a usable tender I can stow on board. At present we have one of these, selected by my dad purely for stowage size and never been used as we all know it's useless really.
My plan this summer is to head for Cornwall with a couple of mates. That tiny fart-bag of a boat is obviously a non-starter for taking three of us up the Yealm, or ashore to Dartmouth, or wherever. So I've been trying to find an alternative.
Step one is that I'm prepared to make some stowage compromises for this trip. I don't want to always sail with the foredeck obstructed, but I'll tolerate it for cruises like this where it's necessary. So I could just haunt eBay, gumtree, etc for a cheap bigger inflatable and roll it up on deck.
Step two is that I still don't have anywhere to stow an outboard. I quite like rowing, but only in something that actually slips through the water like a proper boat. This pretty much rules out inflatables again.
Step three was the Portabote - this seemed plausible and could be strapped along the guardrails, but a new one is getting on for two grand and second-hand ones are rare and still not particularly cheap. My ballpark for this is the £100 - £150 level, ideally.
Step four was this nesting dinghy. OK it'll take up my entire foredeck, and I'd need to check the staysail will still tack over it, but otherwise it seems ideal. Oh, it too costs ten times as much as I want to pay. Still, gives me an idea...
Step five - build my own nesting dinghy. Specifically, the Two-Paw 8 here. I'd guess it probably takes three sheets of ply; I can get 5.5mm WBP for £13 a sheet, other woodwork from my own stock of offcuts, glass tape is cheap, and I've got enough epoxy in the shed to at least make a good start albeit probably not the whole thing. All looking better and better; it even fits on my foredeck provided I don't mind shifting it to get at the bowsprit or anchor. For short hops I can tow it anyway if the weather's reasonable.
The downside? Other people's online build logs for the same dinghy stretching over months and months, and anywhere from 100 to 300 hours of work reported. That's a pretty major obstruction - I want to be using it this summer, and in the meantime I have a real boat with wires hanging all over the place, clever new interior joinery in mind, and tons of spars and deck woodwork in desperate need of varnishing. That stuff will take priority, but it'll take all the time till we launch for the summer, and then I'll want to be sailing, not spending months building dinghies. A couple of weekends and the odd evening, sure, but nothing like the time these other folks seem to have taken.
So, finally (if you're still with me
) the question: would it be naive to think that I can knock out an 8-foot stitch&glue dinghy to rough-as-arse standard in a couple of weekends? I've used epoxy and tape before for repairs, and I'm quite happy whizzing a circular saw round a sheet of ply. I've never built a dinghy before, but I can't see how a build like this has to take as long as it seems to. Are these people just taking their time to produce perfection while my only real success criterion is that three of us are mostly dry when we get to the pub? Or am I underestimating horribly, like when I tried to gut a bathroom to bare joists and rebuild in a week?
Stitch and glue doesn't require great accuracy - filling some pretty heinous gaps with thickened epoxy is all part of the process. Paint on this build would be only as required to keep the wood sound for a few years of very light use - no time-consuming sanding and polishing for a mirror finish. (Indeed, something splodged with leftover Danboline and Ronseal probably has a certain anti-theft advantage.) No need for any finesse on the fittings - breasthooks for example could be reduced to a simple triangle of 18mm ply instead of beautifully curved mahogany. And so on. I'd omit all the sailing features at this point.
Doable?
Pete
My plan this summer is to head for Cornwall with a couple of mates. That tiny fart-bag of a boat is obviously a non-starter for taking three of us up the Yealm, or ashore to Dartmouth, or wherever. So I've been trying to find an alternative.
Step one is that I'm prepared to make some stowage compromises for this trip. I don't want to always sail with the foredeck obstructed, but I'll tolerate it for cruises like this where it's necessary. So I could just haunt eBay, gumtree, etc for a cheap bigger inflatable and roll it up on deck.
Step two is that I still don't have anywhere to stow an outboard. I quite like rowing, but only in something that actually slips through the water like a proper boat. This pretty much rules out inflatables again.
Step three was the Portabote - this seemed plausible and could be strapped along the guardrails, but a new one is getting on for two grand and second-hand ones are rare and still not particularly cheap. My ballpark for this is the £100 - £150 level, ideally.
Step four was this nesting dinghy. OK it'll take up my entire foredeck, and I'd need to check the staysail will still tack over it, but otherwise it seems ideal. Oh, it too costs ten times as much as I want to pay. Still, gives me an idea...
Step five - build my own nesting dinghy. Specifically, the Two-Paw 8 here. I'd guess it probably takes three sheets of ply; I can get 5.5mm WBP for £13 a sheet, other woodwork from my own stock of offcuts, glass tape is cheap, and I've got enough epoxy in the shed to at least make a good start albeit probably not the whole thing. All looking better and better; it even fits on my foredeck provided I don't mind shifting it to get at the bowsprit or anchor. For short hops I can tow it anyway if the weather's reasonable.
The downside? Other people's online build logs for the same dinghy stretching over months and months, and anywhere from 100 to 300 hours of work reported. That's a pretty major obstruction - I want to be using it this summer, and in the meantime I have a real boat with wires hanging all over the place, clever new interior joinery in mind, and tons of spars and deck woodwork in desperate need of varnishing. That stuff will take priority, but it'll take all the time till we launch for the summer, and then I'll want to be sailing, not spending months building dinghies. A couple of weekends and the odd evening, sure, but nothing like the time these other folks seem to have taken.
So, finally (if you're still with me
) the question: would it be naive to think that I can knock out an 8-foot stitch&glue dinghy to rough-as-arse standard in a couple of weekends? I've used epoxy and tape before for repairs, and I'm quite happy whizzing a circular saw round a sheet of ply. I've never built a dinghy before, but I can't see how a build like this has to take as long as it seems to. Are these people just taking their time to produce perfection while my only real success criterion is that three of us are mostly dry when we get to the pub? Or am I underestimating horribly, like when I tried to gut a bathroom to bare joists and rebuild in a week?Stitch and glue doesn't require great accuracy - filling some pretty heinous gaps with thickened epoxy is all part of the process. Paint on this build would be only as required to keep the wood sound for a few years of very light use - no time-consuming sanding and polishing for a mirror finish. (Indeed, something splodged with leftover Danboline and Ronseal probably has a certain anti-theft advantage.) No need for any finesse on the fittings - breasthooks for example could be reduced to a simple triangle of 18mm ply instead of beautifully curved mahogany. And so on. I'd omit all the sailing features at this point.
Doable?
Pete
