"Roger Long" wrote:
My impression, as a boat designer who sees them nearly daily as I go in and
out of Hamilton Marine is that they are a very cool idea well executed. I
would love to have one. The primary drawback is the weight....
..... I wouldn't be too upset to have to
cut my used glass dinghy loose if it became a hazard in bad weather under
tow or the painter broke. I'd sure hate to see a Pudgy with full life
saving package go out of sight astern though.

If not for these factors, I would probably own one now.


I wasn't going to comment, since I've only seen one at the boat show.
But I did have a long talk with the designer/builder. He has taken the
project very seriously, and there are only a very few things that I
think could be done better, and most of them would make the boat cost
a lot more.

One of the most clever things he's done is to refine the sailing gear
for the boat until it almost disappears. A few of you who have
struggled with either trying to rig a sailing dinghy while bobbing
afloat, or trying to do any tender-type functions while the invariably
bulky sailing gear is stowed aboard, will appreciate this.

One thing that could be more cleverly done is to give the boat more
stability & reserve bouyancy. The hull is shaped like the traditional
pram, which is both tiddly and not such a good load-carrier. My
experiments in hull shape show that it *is* possible to make a
traditional looking rowing tender that one can easily stand up in, or
load groceries over the side of, or even take a large & fractious dog
ashore in a choppy anchorage.

The weight issue is important. But without doing something expensive
like building the boat in foam core, it's not going to get any better.
One option for both cost & weight would be to build one yourself in
4mm ply (or foam core), copying as many features of the design as you
can.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King