Dinghy Done!

Well I have managed to complete the dinghy, but sadly there has been to time to test her on the water.

One can't underestimate the time it takes to make the finishing touches. Painting and varnishing took over a week to build the coats up. In the end, there where two coats of epoxy paint (nomally used to seal concrete went on); over that normal household enamel. As I love wood I had to leave some wood showing and decided the rubbing strake would bring out the sheer of what is essentially a rather boxy dinghy.

There are a few "improvements" to the original design. The seats are larger by about 20%. I did this in order to provide more strengh where the seats taper into the hull sides. The original plans called for weak concave curves here; I made the curves convex which are just as pretty and stronger.

I brought the centre-board forward to allow for a larger sail from an Acorn dinghy. As it rains daily out here I did not see any point in improving the design further by making the centre-board case independent of the main thwart. This arrangment makes for a wet bum, but in given the daily downpours one would get wet anyway.