Well, I finally finished my 8 foot dinghy

Back around Christmastime I showed up and was asking a lot of dumb questions on this forum. And some of you guys were nice enough to answer them. It has taken a while but we finally completed the project that we started right before Christmas. I'm not a total neophyte at building things but had never even attempted a boat before. So I looked at a bunch of plans on the Internet, downloaded a couple to study and watched a few dozen boat building videos on youtube. Then I sort of came up with my own plan.

It ended up being about 7 feet 10 inches long, 40 inches wide, and 13 or 14 inches high, a tiny john boat. I read somewhere that your first boat will be overbuilt and overweight and that is exactly right. This little sucker weighs around 120 pounds. On its first trip out we had 590 pounds of people in it. But it seems to work well. Of course there are things that I would do differently a second time.

I can't figure out how to load images on here so if you want to see it I guess you can go to my blog and look at it. I didn't want to do it like this because I don't want it to seem like I'm desperate to get traffic or anything like that. But I don't know how else to show you guys. When I try to attach a picture on here it wants to know the URL. And I don't really have one for them. The pictures of the launch are right here. And I also showed how we built it. Some of you will probably cringe when you see our construction method. And it definitely did not take hours and hours of fine, meticulous woodwork. But it seems to float. And I'm kind of proud of the little sucker. And I almost forgot. Thanks for all your help.



http://semiredneck.blogspot.com/

 

Hey, it kept the people on the inside, and the water on the outside. How much more can you demand from a first boat?

And besides, it's kind of a cute little thing. Gratz on finishing the project....

 

Well, the family's having fun judging from those smiles. Isn't that what this is all about, or supposed to be all about? That's great!

 

Here's an image from the blog:



cheers
Lurvio

 

Nice boat.

 

Now that you've built the dink, it's time to build the yacht.

 

Thanks for posting the pictures for me

 

good job...it is a good accomplishment...much better than reaching level 24 of Balthor's dungeon etc......hand's on real dinghy you made there...and pics to prove it...congrats!

 

Awesome work, 44! So what are you going to build next?

 

Well it's certainly not going to be a boat. Just gonna be a little speaker box mount type thing to put on the dash of our pontoon boat. The rear speakers on our pontoon do not work any longer and the wiring is under the floor, running between two pieces of aluminum plating. Nobody wants to remove the plating just to chase down a broken speaker wire so we're going to build a plywood box type thing to sit on an unused portion of the dash, mount a couple of speakers in it and wire them into the stereo system. Nothing major.

 

I don't want to steal your spotlight but I just finished my 8-foot dinghy too...after a fashion...It got really banged up when it got lost for three days after breaking loose from the back of my c-29 in a bad T-storm last summer in Cedar Keys...about a third of the lip for the rubrail had broken off and the rear floatation compartment needed the wet foam removed...which I already had done to the side float compartments a while back....Anyways..here she is with new paint...juts white rustoleum and some good behr blue interior paint...nothin fancy...just got done with the rivet gun on the rubrail and put the spline back but this pic is from a couple days ago...still needs ss u-bolt for the painter and a couple stern cleats...etc..I think she is Dyer dhow copy...some of you would certainly know...I've had her for a few years now...good lil' boat and I'm glad I finally fixed her up again right.

 

Don't worry about it. I'd like to see more pictures on here of little bitty boats. Yours looks like it would be real handy

 

Thanks..I like her alot...she has a decent skeg to give some tracking..she's fairly light despite the teak slats I put in over the centerboard housing...I hated to cover up some of her sailing features like the c/b slot but she could be returned to sailing-duty with a bit of glaswork and a design plan so she could still be rowed...When I found her (for a song) on craigslist she didn't come with sail rig...just some almost new caviness oars...still dont have a sail rig for her...She was a lucky find though..maybe one day I can make her multi-dimensional again..You can see that the forward bow compartment is unusual in that there used to be glassed over originally...I never put back that panel back after I dug out the wet foam inside ...makes a good storage area...It's not the best set-up due to potential for water-entry but I have hole down low in the back of that compartmnet that allows it to drain quickly into the main part of the shell if it took a big wave and filled...and but she's so short (8 feet)and has enough rocker in her shape that she rides up the face of waves and seldom ever get much water in there...Once, I was foolish and had her over-loaded and heading into heavy chop with a 5hp on her and a heavy passenger on the back seat and she filled to the gunnels but amazingly I was able to bail her out and stay afloat...I think that bow compartment actually stabilized us a bit when it filled from the wave and offset the weight of the passenger in the back seat and the weight of the fairly heavy 40 pound-plus motor...was a close call..but this Dyer-type or whatever is a great design and been around awhile...

 

I bet it cost more than you thought. For reference purpose how much you spend on materials.

 

Dauphin.
Just saw your post..are you asking the OP..or about how much it cost to repair mine..mine had alot of lip broken off..a foot here..a foot or so there...from getting lost during the night in a bad t-storm last summer in Cedar keys...i.e. ,the lip where the black rubber rub-rail goes...It took more detailed effort than actual cash/materials in that case..I think I had to buy some cloth and gallon of resin and a 100-pack of aluminum rivets to re-do the rub-rail once I got it back on the repaired lip all-around..maybe 75 bucks.....