Possibility of homebuilt plywood modern dinghy

[MicHughV]

My experience with plywood dinks is that they are not easy to get in and out of.
An 8 footer is useful for only 2 people...2 small people at that.
If you plan on using it on anything but a (very) calm lake, you'll be disappointed.
You really should consider some flotation under the seats, in the (likely) event it will get flipped over.
Plywood is really suited for only " pram" designs, where the bow is squared off and not pointed.
They row quite well, and can be fitted with a small single sail if you make a centerboard for it.

All in all, it can be a fun project and introduction to boating in general.

Switching gears for a moment, there are quite a few store bought variations of dinghies. Most all built from plastic or fiberglass which may provide you with an alternative means of getting on the water, without building one.

[Muaddib1116]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

My experience with plywood dinks is that they are not easy to get in and out of.
An 8 footer is useful for only 2 people...2 small people at that.
If you plan on using it on anything but a (very) calm lake, you'll be disappointed.
You really should consider some flotation under the seats, in the (likely) event it will get flipped over.
Plywood is really suited for only " pram" designs, where the bow is squared off and not pointed.
They row quite well, and can be fitted with a small single sail if you make a centerboard for it.

Surely almost none of that has anything to do with plywood and all to do with the design of the boat? And I've seen plenty of sailing/rowing dinghies made of plywood with pointed bows and curved hullshapes.

[rslifkin]

Something like this might be a viable option: https://boatplans.cc/bateau/garvey-11/

Or the bigger version: https://boatplans.cc/bateau/garvey-13/

Currently we carry a 12 foot Starcraft aluminum skiff as a dinghy. Weight capacity is an issue, as is the ride in a chop when lightly loaded. But it otherwise does well. Fairly easily driven (after adding trim tabs it'll just barely plane a 450 lb load with 6hp), stable enough that getting in and out isn't a pain, etc. Beam is about 5 feet and the hull has some flare plus a raked stem, so it would be possible to get more waterplane area in the same size to help initial stability and weight carrying. Weight capacity is listed as 3 people / 600 lbs, so once you add the outboard, fuel, oars, etc. it's really only good for about 500 lbs of people and stuff. The biggest thing compared to a tubed design is that it has proper bench seats so you can drive facing forward. Realistically it holds 3 people comfortably (driver on the aft bench, 2 on the center bench), could manage a 4th (facing backwards on the forward bench).

[ggray]

Originally Posted by Muaddib1116

Where was this?

There are numerous designs on the CLCboats website that give you length, carrying capacity, and weight. To meet your requirements it would seem only the Peeler Skiff would do.

[Muaddib1116]

At 15ft and over 300lbs, I'm not so sure.

[MicHughV]

I can but only relate my own experiences here.

My first dink, the plywood one I built, around 8' in length, was simply too small to be practical. It required a keen sense of balance to get in and out, ie, one leg had to be more or less in the center of the dink, before trying to get it. Ditto the passenger.
My next dink, was a fiberglass job, around 11'. It was a lot more substantial than the plywood dink, so much so, I could strap a 2 hp engine on the transom. It was also geared to be used as a sailing dink, and I had a lot of fun with it, but it was heavy.

Thereafter, I opted for the rubber/Hypalon dinks, and have not looked back. My first rubber dink had the plywood floors, which gave me a lot of problems. It was also around 11' in length.

Then I got the RIB, which, to me, was the best of all worlds. It too was around 11' in length. At one time I had a 15 hp on the back, which was a bit too much for it, but found a solution with an 8 hp two stroke.

I've been at this for around 35 years now, and have had many dinks in that time, but recognize, it's a matter of to each his own and there is no shortage of dinghy options available on the market.

An option to consider for the OP are the nestling type plywood dinks, where one half of the dink can fit inside the other half for easy storage. This allows for a much bigger dink.

Finally, keeping a dink on a boat, is a lot different from keeping it on land/trailer/ car rooftop, etc, so how the dink is planned to be used should drive the size and material.

[Muaddib1116]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

I can but only relate my own experiences here.

My first dink, the plywood one I built, around 8' in length, was simply too small to be practical. It required a keen sense of balance to get in and out, ie, one leg had to be more or less in the center of the dink, before trying to get it. Ditto the passenger.
My next dink, was a fiberglass job, around 11'. It was a lot more substantial than the plywood dink, so much so, I could strap a 2 hp engine on the transom. It was also geared to be used as a sailing dink, and I had a lot of fun with it, but it was heavy.

That sounds more like a size/design result, not due to the material.

[MicHughV]

whatever......

[Muaddib1116]

Lol

I mean, are you saying otherwise? If so, I'd actually really like to hear what your reasoning is. If not, why keep bringing it up?

[ramron67]

Sorry to weigh in late here, but on the general topic of plywood boats, my local yacht club races a sizeable fleet of Thunderbirds, which is a class that was originally designed to be made out of plywood.

[Leadfree]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

The best one I have seen is from Tendercat, finished, kits and plans. Very very light and stable low tech simple plywood construction.


https://domimontesinos.com/tendercat...nte-et-legere/

thank you, I've been looking for something like this

[Franziska]

Having been an avid dinghy sailor in the past I built a Spindrift 11 & teamed it with the deck and rigging of a discarded Laser 1 sailing dinghy.



Raised the freeboard by 50mm though and added a skeg.



Sails nicely with the same ergonomics as a Laser, planes with a 4hp motor and one person in it and rows we'll too.

Biggest plus, it had a huge watertight storage area in the bow.



Plan to add two sprayrails fwd. and possibly add a foam collar. At the moment the bump rail is very thick garden hose.

[TrentePieds]

Only once (I think) in 42 posts have I seen mention of the fact that plywood doesn't DO compound curves! That is the REAL restriction on the use of plywood. For he who is content with a hull shape consisting of adroitly mated panels whose shapes are developed CONICALLY, plywood can be a joy. The Thunderbird - 26 feet of cruising ply was mentioned. Panels are conically developed. I had a crew of university students - as left-handed and squinty-eyed as only sociology students can be - build not one but two Enterprise dinghies in my basement. 13 feet of racing joy! The panels are conically developed.

The trick to boat building in ply is in the strongback - the frame that supports the boat while the assembly of its parts proceeds, and from which the boat is subsequently lifted clear. Be sloppy with the construction of the strongback and you get a bad boat that was unnecessarily troublesome to put together!

Bonne chance :-)!

TrentePieds

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Only once (I think) in 42 posts have I seen mention of the fact that plywood doesn't DO compound curves! That is the REAL restriction on the use of plywood. For he who is content with a hull shape consisting of adroitly mated panels whose shapes are developed CONICALLY, plywood can be a joy. The Thunderbird - 26 feet of cruising ply was mentioned. Panels are conically developed. I had a crew of university students - as left-handed and squinty-eyed as only sociology students can be - build not one but two Enterprise dinghies in my basement. 13 feet of racing joy! The panels are conically developed.

The trick to boat building in ply is in the strongback - the frame that supports the boat while the assembly of its parts proceeds, and from which the boat is subsequently lifted clear. Be sloppy with the construction of the strongback and you get a bad boat that was unnecessarily troublesome to put together!

Bonne chance :-)!

TrentePieds

Trente your thoughts are often very good, but, some stitch and glue building methods do NOT require a backbone.

The Spindrift design is one of many.



You cut the panels. Sew them together at the center line and brace them with temporary or permanent braces of defined length apart to spread them out.

No need for a backbone the panel outline automatically gives the desired keel line when spread apart.



Or, do I misunderstood your posting?

[TrentePieds]

Well, no you didn't misunderstand. I am, of course, aware of the stitch and glue technique, but I have never used it. And I suspect it :-)

The main thrust of my post was that ply just CANNOT be convinced by an amatoor builder to take COMPOUND curvature. There are industrial processes whereby a compoundly curved object can be produced from thin strips of VENEER bonded to form a "wood of many plies" i.e. "plywood". But an amatoor cannot do that in his garage. You see it done, for instance, in the making of chairs. The method is now common but was pioneered in the making of the style of furniture called "Danish Modern".

And there is no need. As the T'bird and many a racing dinghy prove, "slab-sided" hulls can perform extremely well.

But things change. In 1958 divers American plywood producers, under the aegis of the American Plywood Association were busy creating markets for all the plywood they made from the glorious "first growth" Douglas Fir they harvested off Canadian mountain sides, paying a pittance in "stumpage" (essentially the purchase price of the tree when felled) leaving devastated the unique ecology that had taken a millennium and more to develop.

Bean Seaborn, a Seattle naval architect, was decidedly small potatoes in that effort, but that's where the T'bird design came from. For Scowegians, such as meself, who'd grow up with the famous Folkebåd, the T'bird's scanty accommodations were just the way things had always been, and as a sailboat the T'bird was superb.

So to answer the OP's question: Yes, Of COURSE, you can build a plywood boat. Plywood is made from many species of wood coming from every corner of the world. Ease of working and durability varies with species but the building technique is the same regardless of where the wood grew. If you are building a "class" boat to close tolerances use a (good) strongback. If you are building a utilitarian dink there is no reason you shouldn't use "stitch and glue". You can actually buy kits with the panels already cut (laser cut!) to shape and the stitching holes pre-bored

Cheers

TP