Wooden tender / pram building

[Richard_Peevor]

I am hoping to spend my winter building a new tender for my 28' yacht. I am planning to build a wooden stitch and glue type designed ply dinghy. the 7'6" - 7' 9" size range is best for me as I'd like to be able to put the boat on the foredeck.

I dont want an option of adding a sailing rig, I purely want a boat to row (or possibly put a small outboard on - but inital plans are for rowing). I would like a dinghy with the bow and stern buoyancy compartment / seat and a central thwart. I would like a design that is as seaworthy or as stable as you can get for this sort of size..

I have been looking at the Fyne boats - particularly the tender behind or their prams, and the barrow boats.

I'm not flush with cash (hence why I'm building it myself!) so budget will play a relatively big part in deciding.

I am ok with the DIY skills (Built a mirror dinghy in the same manner) but that was with a kit. I am a little apprehensive about building from plans as the lofting etc seems daunting.

Does anyone have any advice regarding tenders they have built or used? Any recommendations? or ones to avoid ?!? Anyone use the fyne boat plans or kits?

Many thanks

Richard

 

[sarabande]

PBO Pup, or try these people

www.jordanboats.co.uk/JB/index.htm

 

[m1taylor]

I have built both the Eastport Pram and Elterwater from Fyne Boats. The Elterwater is cheaper, but less attractive. Both have built in buoyancy. I use the Elterwater as my tender, and it rows very well and is reasonably stable. the Eastport is even better, but it's heavier, and I need to be able to pick it up and carry to a dinghy rack single handed. Being so light they can be over powered by an outboard - on the other hand the Elterwater is quite fun even with 2-3 HP behind you. Be careful about weight - the maximum is two adults plus gear - any more and rowing is more difficult, and the boat too low. I also found the staff at Fyne boats brilliant - always replied to emails with lots of helpful advice on building the boats.

 

[BAtoo]

http://www.smallboats.com/bolger.htm - you could try these guys; never used them tho'. Phil Bolger has many diy buil designs; some a bit quirky - just google to find him.
Good luck!

 

[rwakeham]

I went to the boat show yesterday looking for a wooden tender - I find the current rubber dingy leaky, unstable and a bother to put up and down. I was rather taken with something similar to the posts above - a stowaway folding boat (stowawayboat.com - no www). Does anyone have experience of these - one thing that worries me is getting them back on board ?

 

[Lakesailor]

I haven't built a Fyne boats kit, but have spent quite a bit of time there and and money as I used them as a source when re-building the Heron.
The boats they build up for customers are superb. And featherweight, much lighter than my own tender.
Their pre-cut kits make building way way easier, but it's not rocket science to cut your own.
They are very nice people.

No connection, etc. etc.

 

[VicS]

I did exactly that but designed my own. The design is a bit of a crib from a Jack Holt Design, the "Jack Sprat" that was being promoted at the time, wth a few ideas from the " Bumble Bee", from the same stable, that former PBO editor George Taylor built for his daughter at about the same time.

It has a flat bottom but a Vee like the Mirror would have been better, at least drier in a bit of a chop. It also has a double chine which looks pretty but probably makes it more tender than a single chine design would be.

It was sized so that all the ply panels could be cut from two sheets of (WBP) ply without joins. I used a thinner ply than the Mirror but if I was doing it again I would consider getting one sheet thicker than the other and making the bottom and other vulnerable panels from that. I did glue two thicknesses together for the bow transom and that has a substantial knee between it and the bottom through which an eye bolt and ring passes for the painter.

It has fore and aft buoyancy tanks. The aft one makes an aft seat but the foreward one is full depth, up to the gunwales, with a curved top to look pretty, and has a seat with sheltered stowage below behind it. Like a Mirror. Some hardwood offcuts make the thwart, its supports and some knees to stiffen the sides; the Mirror like floor battens, the reinforcement for the transom to take the outboard (Seagull 40 Featherweight), the gunwales, the skeg(s) and bilge pieces to protect the bottom. A little plywood web links the centre of the thwart to the bottom in the absence of a centre board case.

Rather than using copper wire stitches throughout like the Mirror I used a few of them at strategic points but Nylon monofilament fishing line (40lbs I think) as a continuous lacing between them. That was a method I learnt from building a canoe from a kit. (some old electrical cable, not flex, of the appropriate size will yield copper wire for the stitches where used.

On the flat bottom I fitted twin skegs which have a pair of small plastic wheels attached. Even with a Vee bottom a skeg will improve the directional stability when rowed and especially if towed. Almost essential in the latter case I would say.

I provided alternative positions for the rowlocks so that it could be rowed from the forward seat if necessary and later added an additional rowlock on the transom so that it can be sculled in confined spaces.

A rope fender around the sides and the front finishes it off, protects the dinghy and the topsides of the boat and despite its age does not leave black marks on everything it touches.

I started with some drawings, progressed to a small cardbord model which enabled me to do some "tank tests" weighing it down with some lead shot to test the potential load carrying capacity and then to a larger model made of thin hardboard to check the shapes of the panels.

The end result was a dinghy that I can carry and lift singled handed onto the roof of the car, that is large enough fot two adults plus a little gear, maybe three adults in calm conditions, and tows happily when needed. Good quality WBP ply has stood the test of time, nearly 30 years, but although it lives upside down at the boat yard during the summer it comes home for the winter and is covered up in the garden up off the ground. It is repainted and varnished every year as well.

Hope that gives you some ideas. If I was doing it again though I would at least take a serious look at the PBO Pup. If only to crib some ideas.

 

[moonie1]

easy to build plans here

 

[Blueboatman]

You would be doing well to outbuild a Walker Bay dinghy in terms of strength,cost,weight and proven design -imho.
Here's one on ebay right now-http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230029047607&ih=013&category=98955&ssPageName=WDVW&rd=1

 

[Richard_Peevor]

Hello all who have posted, much appreciated.. I'm pleased to hear the positives about the Fyne boats. I agree about the Walker bay boats but I havent seen one at a cheap price... I have marked that boat to see what it goes for.

 

[cliffordpope]

Like VicS I have designed my own. In my case a flat bottomed 7' pram, in WBP plywood. I cribbed the basic design off the internet, then built a scale model out of cardboard 1" to 1', and tweaked the design a bit.
Then made the two transomes, joined them with a bent keel-piece, screwed to a stout frame from 2 baulks of timber, and built three temporary frames.
Fixed the two side pieces of ply, scribed the correct line and trimmed to shape, then folded the bottom sheet down temporarily and scribed the chine position. Removed, cut, then screwed and glued.
I have just released it from the frame, and turned it the right way up, and epoxied in two chine reinforcements with fibre tape. Now planning to reinforce the gunwhale by steaming round a 1/2" section inside and out like a sandwich. Then I'll fit knees at the corners.

I'll test in on the pond before finally fitting the main thwart, to get the balance right.

Total cost so far about £40.