small wooden tender plans

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gary3029

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I am after building a 1 person wooden tender for when I go out to the boat alone. It has to be wooden and small so I can lift it on board. Have done a google search but not getting what I want...Anybody come across anything suitable? Have looked at a folding boat but unsure how secure a peice of PVC is at keeping me dry!!!
 
I built one earlier this year from some plans I bought off ebay....

Cur the paneles out of marine ply and stiched them together using wire before I epoxied it all together....great fun getting the thing in the water...bought an out board and bob's your uncle...

Let me know and I'll dig out the plans
 
A word of caution - the smaller the wooden tender, the less stable you will find it. I would not risk anything much less than 8ft - but, then that won't be easy to stow? What's wrong with inflatables?
 
In my opinion (and experience)having 'moved up'through a folding ply/pvc dinghy,a 6ft grp pram and an Avon Redstart,I would say that for one person the latter is the only one that does it all-stable,easy to hoike on board,will carry an anchor out into a sea/waves and with a real pair of oars will row tolerably well unless you put 2 people in it.
And it wont bash the sides of your yacht every time it surfs or you get wind over tide at anchor..For added performance and refinement add ply flooring.
Sorry,building a ply dinghy is loads of fun over the winter but the user experience may be less than you would want.
I would say :Try before you buy or build!
 
You will pay way over what's necessary for any of the "Name" inflatables, ie Zodiac, Avon et al.

If all you want is a boat tender, and you aint gonna hang it in davits to get itself UV'd, any of the cheaper brands will do, Seago are good, as are Wetline, but the best value for money inflatables available at the moment are Excel.

Have a look here, and when you do, check out the specs against the competition, ie. Tube sizes etc.

http://www.excel-inflatables.co.uk/boats/inflatables/pg_inflatable.html

You will get people on these forums that will scoff at the cheaper ones, but it's horses for courses, if you are more concerned with having the right name hanging on the davits of your Gin Palace, than getting a value for money deal?.......

The names I have mentioned re. the cheaper end of the market are all well made pieces of kit, I have had a Seago, and now have an Excel, only changed because I wanted a bigger dinghy with inflatable keel and floor. The Excel, just happened to be the best deal at the time.
 
I bought a little (1.8 m / 6') Wetline inflatable dinghy at Force 4 in September for exactly the same reason that you specify - ie an easy to handle dinghy that I can row out to the mooring in by myself.

We do have an old Avon Redcrest as well - it is a wonderful dinghy, but it is a lot heavier than the little Wetline (which is only 16 kg all up) - I can easily sling the Wetline on the roofrack by myself, no worries, but the Avon is much more difficult to handle by myself (no sweat with 2 people though).

I have also built a couple of small (7' 6") 2-part nesting pram dinghies of my own design (one in GRP, and the prototype in plywood), and for sheer rowing efficiency and joy you just cannot beat a rigid dink with a good pair of oars - I can easily overtake an average inflatable with a 2 hp outboard going to windward, and that is without putting a lot of grunt into the oars.

This pram dinghy is ideal with one person, but can take two OK - it has had 3 average sized people in it a few times, but only in very calm water, as we then had minimal freeboard..... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
If you are going to use the tender frequently then the tube size is very important. Wet bottoms and feet come with small tube size.

Wood/plastic tenders are driest and will not get damage pulling up on beaches and stones etc.

It is important to consider what would happen to a dinghy on the davits if you got a big wave into it... would the dinghy or davits break first?

One use of davits is to pull the dinghy up at night so that nobody pinches it...

Michael
 
I've built little'uns on the principle that if it looks right it probably is. no doubt some will disagree but a 7'6" pram on the stitch & glue method is easy/peasy and dead cheap to make. Design your own - it's really not "rocket science" for a pram. There's an outfit up North sell epoxy glues/fillers/tapes really cheaply, try searching on Google for "clear casting resin" because they don't appear on more conventional searches. They also do pour-in foam so you can fill up fore/aft thwart boxes for buoancy.

Proportionally, approx beam is half length, or a lttle over for more stability, chine to gun'l approx one third beam. You can use local builder's merchants for Far Eastern or Malaysian exterior 6mm plywood, veneers are a pinky/brown, so will take stain/varnish, glue is BS1088 so the same as Thames Marineply but a tenth of the cost or less. Find a friendly builder to buy three sheets for you at his discount at Travis Perkins! All you want is some timber for a hog/transom frame and scrap ply/mdf/blockboard for formers.

Anton Fitzpatrick built using that on "Dreamboats" (Sky Discovery Channel) but I was using it years ago. Kept painted or varnished it lasts for years, remember, it only gets wet occasionally.

Put a decent hog down it, (keelson) and you can fit ringbolts for davit lift.
 
I built my plywood pram 7 years ago using ordinary interior grade 1/4" plywood, cos I was being cheap (or I thought I was! The epoxy cost put paid to that idea!) and I was ignorant.
I did lavishly coat it with WEST epoxy though, and it is still functioning - but only because the epoxy did not allow any water to penetrate the plywood.
I would NOT recommend using furniture ply for any dink - spend a bit more on proper stuff!
 
This is our 7foot 6inch pram tender we built about 8 or 9 years ago from cheap exterior grade 6mm plywood and softwood keel gunwhales chines etc.

You dont need a plan just copy one that looks about right. For a boat this small I wouldnt use epoxy coatings due to expense.Use waterproof glue and ring barbed boat nails then paint with cheap exterior paint .

SeanTender.jpg


PS iF You dont exceed 7 foot six then all panels can be cut out in one piece from 8x4 sheets of ply.
 
I shall try to attach a photo of my dinghy here - have never done this before, so dont be surprised if nothing comes up....

Martinrowing.jpg


It is in two sections (bow stows inside the stern) and has a longitudinal bench seat.
It worked! Crappy photo though. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
I have been through most of the options on my seal 22. Started with a PBO PUP. Great fun to build. Good tender but could never even imagine getting it out of the water onto the boat. I moved onto a similar sized seahopper. Easier to store at home and it was possible to lift it out using a hoist on the spinnaker pole but what a faff. Next made a "wooden Widget" (google search it). Fantastic fun to build, works well but at the end of the day, if you buy the fyne boats kit it's 425 and if you source cheap stuff yourself its still 200+ and will have a shorter lifespan. Finally it occurs to me, the reason 99% of people have a small inflatable is that they are best at the job. Bought a 1996 avon soft transom of e bay for £127. That is by far the best tender I have ever had. Spend your time and money and enthusiasm on projects that will really enhance your boat, not running through endless tender options that will in the end bring you to a squidgy

J
 
Hi Gary,
Before you dismiss the Avon Redstart idea completely,you can often find them second hand at Boatjumbles,some professionally serviced(ie new valves etc) for £200-£300.
 
Try my website's dingy plan at http://www.geocities.com/richardandtracy/articles/dingy.htm. I haven't updated the site since making the rowing version last summer to include a picture. Total cost: 2 sheets of WBP (£26.43p). The rest of the timber came from pallets. Only note is that you need to add a central stiffener as the floor is a rather large unsupported area. I can carry it myself over my head at the 8ft size.

Regards

Richard.
 
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