Im Building a Sailing Dinghy! Check it out!

[Hermit Scott]

I don't think my dinghy is made of plywood. I think it is solid wood. It is pretty heavy and has a fan design in the wood on the transom. Maybe it's just the transom that is solid, I don't know. The hull is thick and heavy. I don't think a little thicker rope would matter on this thing. Somebody spent alot of time and money on it.
Jibes- how did you lash the sail to the spars? Do you have an outhaul? When you hoist the halyard how do you get all the wrinkles out of the main?

 

[jibes138]

lugsail

My sail has grommets on the top and foot edges. I have a hole drilled in each end of the upper spar and run a continuous line through the grommets wrapping it around the spar. i use a separate short piece of line to us as an outhaul but it is not adjustable under sail. You should have a block of some type at the top of the mast for a halyard and the boom is attached to the mast. I cut a rectangular slot at the top of my mast and put a sheave in it with a pin through the mast to hold it. You could also put a padeye with a block . As you can see from my picture the front edge of the sail extends beyond the mast. When the sail is to windward with heavy winds the upper spare bears against the mast which causes the upper spar to bend and I'm afraid of breaking it, so I usually just loosen the halyard a bit, pull the spar over to leeward of the mast and retighten the halyard. It is a pain for tacking quickly in tight areas but if you have some room for long tacks it works good.

 

[Hermit Scott]

Thanks for sharing that info. That helps out a lot. I may try again with it on a warm day soon.

 

[sailingandsuch]

I have been working hard on the boat when I can and I have made qite a bit of progress. I have post more photos and more on my blog, check it out!

http://sailingandsuch.blogspot.com/

Here is a little taste........

 

[William12213]

They are a lot of fun to build. I built this one a couple winters ago and it rowed great. I sold it and now am building one that will sail. They do go together very fast. I think I had about 30 hours in that last one and it should have been less but you know how we are at times. Just a little more here or there....

Good luck with yours and make sure to get us some pics of you sailing it.

 

[sailingandsuch]

Beautiful William! I like the blue with the red at the waterline, and the dark stain of the wood.

You say you sold that one? How much did you sell it for? Did it pay for the boat? Just curious.

I will definately have some pictures of her sailing, don't worry about that!

 

[William12213]

Thanks sailingandsuch. I made it to match my old boat that is why it was blue. The wood trim and seats were oak so I stained them with a water based stain then epoxy over that and then some poly. It looked like you were looking thru glass at the wood grain. The paint job came out great...if I held my wooden ruler up to it you could read to 28 inches. It amazes me how good of a paint job you can get by rolling and tipping it out.

I got $700.00 for it which is about 2 1/2 times what I had into it not counting my time which was about 30 hours. I didn't build it to make a profit, I built it to use so I spent more time on things then you might normally do. once I sold the old boat I just wanted to get rid of the dinghy so I could buy more stuff and build another one. It is a lot of fun and very rewarding.