"Bruce in Bangkok" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:21:45 -0600, cavelamb himself
wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote:


One of my money earning hobbies is building dinghies. I designed and
built several 8 ft glass over plywood boats that will carry three
adults (well, skinny ones) quite safely in any weather I want to be
out in a dinghy. They aren't as light as a rubber duck but they are
light enough that I can pick one up by my self. Local made rubber
dinghies are running a bit over $1,000 here and I can build glass over
plywood boat for about a third of that.


Now that would be interesting.
Do you have any more info on them you can share?

I would't mind building my own.
(I suspect postage on something like that would be a bit over the top.)

But we would have to work out a way to swing it aboard first.

It is a scow and pretty wide, have a look at:

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=D5

which is what I used as a model when I designed mine.

The boat is built of 1/8" ply and glassed inside and out with the
lightest cloth I can get. The bow and stern seats are flotation
chambers. The center thwart is not boxed in like the D5 to save
weight, and I made the seat tops from 1/8" ply with a "honeycomb" made
from 3/4" wide strips of ply on the bottom side. This makes the seats
stiff enough to sit or stand on and they are still lighter then
thicker ply.

I have a "Y" shaped sling that attaches to the corners of the transom
and the bow and handle the dinghy with the spinnaker pole lift and use
a boat hook to push it out so it doesn't rub on the topsides.

I'm in Bangkok at the moment and the working drawings are in Phuket
but I can probably scare up the offsets somewhere and email them if
your address is any good.


Bruce-in-Bangkok
(Note:remove underscores
from address for reply)


In 1984 I build a D5 (Sabot) without epoxy. Since then I have used it every
season. During the winter, it is stored in my garage. I have spent, on
average, about 5 hours of work every year to maintain it. This D5 rows
exceptionally well with one person. With two persons on board it rows fine
in calm water. When the going get rough the person on the stern seat gets
her/his bum wet. It tows very well. In very rough seas when going down the
waves crest this D5 goes faster then my sailboat and gets ahead of it. I
have tried several towing technique, long and short towline.

In heavy weather (lacking the space to stow it on board) the long towline
gives me time to avoid the dinghy from hitting the stern of my sailboat.

The first year I had the dinghy the towing hook came off the dinghy because
I had only used lag screws without backing plate. Since then I installed
the towing hook with SS bolts with strong back up plate.

I have now cut all the parts to build a new D5. This time I will be using
stitch and clue with quality epoxy.

I will also try to rearrange the position of middle seat to properly balance
the dinghy for two people. I welcome comments on relocating the seat to
better accommodate the weight distribution for two people.