Dinghy

Dingy 2 almost finished

Posted by Paul

Today I glassed in the ply floors in the hatches, made steps for the stern of each hull and glued the lids on. That only leaves the steps to be glued in and then the lids trimmed so that all of the exterior joins can be glassed. Then a final sand and a coat of resin then paint to finish it, plus adding the deck hardware.

We have found another minor problem with Warren’s dingy that I have rectified on mine. On Warrens his hulls ended on an angle from the longer keel back to the transom bulkhead creating an attractive wedge shape. Unfortunately these dig in when motoring at speed in reverse. Now I grant you this is not something you do often but is not preferable. I decided I wanted an easy way to get into the dingy from in the water as I plan to swim and dive from mine one day, so I have built a step into the keel and squared off the keels so that they wont dig in in reverse.

In the pictures above you can see the rest of the steps drying on top of the lids. Once dry they will fit into the keels and be glued and taped into place and the sides trimmed to suit. I might still keep a nice angled side rather than the profile of the steps on the outside but have the step profile on the inside.

I have to start planning for my hull move and at this stage I am trying to organize it to happen the weekend after next. In the meantime I can start moving smaller items across. Tomorrow I have one of my regular Melbourne trips but I hope to do a little more on the dingy on Tuesday or Wednesday and hope to have it finished and ready to go into the water next weekend. I spent 6 hours (3 hours yesterday and 3 hours today) on the second dingy for a total of 27 hours.

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Paul