Which plywood dinghy?

Kelpie

Kelpie

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Looking for a tender that can carry three people at a decent speed under power, and not be too large and heavy. Yeah a RIB would be nice but out of budget unless I can get a secondhand bargain. A DIY plywood dinghy could do the job, and should be around £500 to build.

So I've narrowed it down to two:
http://www.selway-fisher.com/Mcup16.htm#RIER

and
https://bateau.com/studyplans/GV10_study.php?prod=GV10

They look very similar. Anybody care to offer an opinion on which one they would choose? Or is there anything similar available that I've missed?
 
No experience of either, but in a sixty second skim I'd go Selway...

It can take a bigger engine, why you need a bigger engine I don't know but it can.

But more useful - it has inbuilt buoyancy. I'm sure you can add it to the other... But why bother if one already has a design for it.

But a ply boat is a maintenance pain...

If it's to get to a mooring and stay on mooring while you sail, I'd look for a rotomoulded hull.
If it needs to be lighter ...? Grp
 
Put a 'wanted' add in your local paper, gumtree, club notice board or whatever and you will get many replies and probably well under the £500 budget, and you won't have to waste time building it.

Years ago in the days when newspapers were the thing I put an add in for a tender and got 29 replies!
 
I'm after a dinghy that can plane with three people aboard but which weighs no more than about 40kg.

The two designs I'm considering are the only ones I'm aware of that meet this requirement, unless I buy a RIB.

Anyway, building a dinghy sounds like fun :)
 
rszemeti said:
Waste time? My dear chap, building things is a pleasure, not a waste of time ...
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I've had my time building mirror dinghies, trailers, launching trollies etc etc and yes it was fun but nowadays I've better things to do with the limited time now available to me.

As they say; if it flies, floats or makes love - hire it. :rolleyes:
 
SAMYL said:
I've had my time building mirror dinghies, trailers, launching trollies etc etc and yes it was fun but nowadays I've better things to do with the limited time now available to me.

As they say; if it flies, floats or makes love - hire it. :rolleyes:
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Ah there you have a point. Touché
 
Kelpie said:
I'm after a dinghy that can plane with three people aboard but which weighs no more than about 40kg.

The two designs I'm considering are the only ones I'm aware of that meet this requirement, unless I buy a RIB.

Anyway, building a dinghy sounds like fun :)
Click to expand...

It does look like fun, and I have recently been drawing up a simple tender, in Solidworks, ready to feed the flat patterns into my CNC router ...

The basic hull came out fine, and I succesfully tramsformed the panels into files for the router ... just making up panels for all the seats, transom etc now and then I might have a crack at routing one out.

pwKrHSI.jpg
 
Any reason not to just buy a mirror dinghy and perhaps re-inforce it's transom?

A fully rigged mirror is 45kg - I dare say one without the centreboard, mast, sails etc will be close to 40kg..
 
scruff said:
Any reason not to just buy a mirror dinghy and perhaps re-inforce it's transom?

A fully rigged mirror is 45kg - I dare say one without the centreboard, mast, sails etc will be close to 40kg..
Click to expand...

They're just a wee bit too long (won't fit on the foredeck). Seems a bit of a stretch to be putting a 10-15hp motor on the back as well.

Another consideration in favour of building is that I would likely end up driving the length of the country to pick up a suitable secondhand dinghy- they mostly seem to be for sale in Devon from what I've found so far!
 
Kelpie said:
Another consideration in favour of building is that I would likely end up driving the length of the country to pick up a suitable secondhand dinghy- they mostly seem to be for sale in Devon from what I've found so far!
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As someone with a saved Ebay search for one for use as a tender on the west coast, understand that point!
 
I used to have a 10ft pram type dinghy which I used as a tender, although it was GRP.
3-up, it's going to take a fair bit of grunt to get it up on the plane.
I would say a 15HP engine. You can plane on a bit less in very flat water, but the point of having a tender that will plane is that you can anchor further out and motor into port, so the reality is you are going to meet a bit of chop, which stops pram dinghies dead if they are well loaded or under powered. It's also very wet.
Neither of those designs have much freeboard.
Planing a dinghy made of thin ply is quite hard on the boat if the floor is not well reinforced. All that flexing takes its toll.
A small fast boat, being wet, benefits from a double floor or good floorboards if you want to keep your gear dry.
Serious built in buoyancy is a must IMHO.
Which all adds weight.
I think if you add up the weight it's quite hard to build something decent 10ft long down to 45kg, a sheet of 10mm ply is about 17kg?
You will want good rubbing strakes and so forth, as it would be silly to beach a brand new dinghy without.
Cost wise, I can see quite a few quid in paint, varnish and epoxy.

The killer for me in the end was the difficult of fendering those corners on the bow against the side of my yacht.

The time saved by planing your tender is easily wasted faffing with heavy engines!
 
Thanks, very useful feedback. Maybe explains why you don't really see bluewater cruisers buzzing about in plywood dinghies.

I'm planning on fitting davits so that the dink can be recovered with the engine in place. Ideally the dinghy will be light enough to get away with a 10hp 2strk and the whole package will weigh less than 70kg.
 
Kelpie said:
Thanks, very useful feedback. Maybe explains why you don't really see bluewater cruisers buzzing about in plywood dinghies.

I'm planning on fitting davits so that the dink can be recovered with the engine in place. Ideally the dinghy will be light enough to get away with a 10hp 2strk and the whole package will weigh less than 70kg.
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70kg, plus fuel and odds and ends is about 40kg more than SWMBO and I want to be carrying up the beach.
Don't forget the weight of oars, fuel, maybe a small anchor and some line.
At that kind of weight, you might want to add some transom wheels, which can be brilliant, but on shingle they're just another 8kg to carry.
 
lw395 said:
70kg, plus fuel and odds and ends is about 40kg more than SWMBO and I want to be carrying up the beach.
Don't forget the weight of oars, fuel, maybe a small anchor and some line.
At that kind of weight, you might want to add some transom wheels, which can be brilliant, but on shingle they're just another 8kg to carry.
Click to expand...

One thing I'd like to get a better answer to is just how important it is to have a dinghy light enough to carry up a beach.
Some cruisers appear to have big dinghies with console steering and a 25hp on the back, and a lot of these people seem to be retired couples who are clearly never going to pick that thing up. I presume they are using dinghy docks or wading/swimming ashore.
Maybe the big dinghy is used where a dock is available, and a lightweight alternative for times when you will need to carry the tender up a beach.

My ideal- I think- would be a 9-10ft alu hulled RIB weighing around 35kg, with a Tohatsu 9.8 (26kg), giving a total of 61kg plus oars, fuel, etc. I think this is about manageable for the two of us, especially if it's a RIB that can be dragged without damage. And there is the option of leaving the motor behind, or using our 3.5hp (13kg) for those times that it really matters.

The only real downside I can see to this type of boat is the cost- at least £2500 new, and they are not common secondhand. Hence looking into building a plywood boat to do the same job, which I think I can do for around £500.

FYI the planned cruising area is Atlantic circuit and we would, one day, love to get as far as the Pacific.
 
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