General opinion of Nesting dingy's?

Gunni

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Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
Friends of ours built one years ago. Eventually they decided that even having a nesting dinghy on deck was a space consuming hassle. So they started towing the thing behind. Shortly thereafter a wave swamped the dink, the leaden derelict came up short on it's tether and they yanked the thing into two pieces. Patched it up and sold it to some kid shortly after. The End.
 
Sep 8, 2014
2,551
Catalina 22 Swing Keel San Diego
I like the general idea for several reasons. I looked at the folding boats and have see all the positive comments, just too expensive for me and the size of my sailboat right now. I have a Zodiac that I got used at a really good price, but at 10 feet it is too big to stow on my boat (I will only be using it to motor to my mooring), with a wood floor it is too difficult to set up on deck. If I could have found a used 8 foot Zodiac with the high pressure floor it would have been the better choice. I realize that with an inflatable I run the risk of tear/puncture that many people note and I would really hate to see my expensive outboard go into the drink!

I really like the second link dink (haha). The honeycomb core and S-Glass make for lighter construction but I find it puzzling that it comes in at 99 pounds complete. I used to build cedar strip canoes and kayaks as a teen and they were very light, but yes, very different construction types.

I had an idea years ago to try to simplify composite foam core small boat construction. Basically I would build a simple 4x8 vac table and do a run of 4x8 sheets of foam core composite sandwich. The completed sheets could then be treated almost like plywood in the construction of a small boat for either stich and glue or traditional plywood boat building methods. Just the same, why couldn't I make my own folding boat in this manner as well?
Someday I hope to explore this method fully and build a folding boat or nesting dink in say the 8-9 foot range with a good balance of speedy to stable hull design. I'd like to do it in Carbon with a goal weight of less than 60 pounds. I'd like to be able to easily assemble, launch, and recover the dink from a single arm davit with the outboard mounted. Seem reasonable?
 
Mar 1, 2012
2,182
1961 Rhodes Meridian 25 Texas coast
Graham Byrnes, of B and B Yacht Design (Core Sounds, etc) looked into foam core dinghies. Turns out there's a big weight penalty. Ply wood is llighter

He designs some nice nesting dinks