What About a Micro Dinghy?

[Tnflakbait]

Make the half pea. Then you can make the rest of the pea and nest the half pea inside it!

[rtbates]

How about an inflatable that sails, and even has a fully enclosed liferaft option?

It's quite different from others.


http://www.tinkerinflatables.com/

randy

[Amgine]

Well, I picked up the plywood today, and I can't start marking it out until next week! ::grumble::

I'm going to build the half-pea, and hopefully finish before the end of February. If things have worked out about as expected, I'm thinking of taking on the challenge of the flapdoodle folding dinghy as per the advice in this thread. I'd really prefer something smaller; 8' is going to cover a fair length of the lifelines and I'm sure I won't be able to get it below...

[Evan]

Consider a proper nesting dinghy. <Shameless commercial plug coming up>

I designed this one for my 28' sailboat. Dozens of them have been built by now. They row very very well compared to a typical 8' pram. Nested, they are 5'6" so 2" longer than your coachroof. Could it overhang 2"? It uses 3 sheets of plywood.

Here's the link:

Boat plan, details

Evan Gatehouse

[Sunspot Baby]

Consider a compact rib. Deflate it and store it when sailing. Then at destination, inflate and you have a hard bottom dinghy. Avon makes an 8 1/2' dinghy that would be very close to your space when deflated and stowed. It will cary a little over 900 pounds and is a real boat. The West Marine model is listed at $2749 in the 2006 catalog.

George

George

[Amgine]

Let's see how this project goes before we settle on other plans. With the additional length, getting below might be rather complicated. Want to draw a nesting 6.5 footer?

As for the rib... where would I store the motor and fuel? That was the question which first determined that whatever I end up with has to be a rowing boat primarily. Everything must be stored onboard, which seriously limits the possibilities.

[SkiprJohn]

Aloha Amgine,
I used to store my old British Segull outboard on a bracket I made for the pushpit. Gas goes in a small container secured under your overturned dinghy.
Get the very smallest two stroke outboard you can find. They are very light (30lbs) or less.
The alternative is a small electric trolling motor. You then have a small dedicated deepcycle battery you can store below decks and charge it via a solar panel. When you want to use it just put it in the dinghy. You can use the electric for a few hours on one charge.
I prefer the electric but for power the gas one pushes stronger.
JohnL

[Rick]

Since you are going to build the Half-Pea anyway, why not make 5 more relatively small pieces to form a bolt-on bow section that might make it easier to row into seas and wind? Merely project "forward" the existing two sides, bottom pieces and copy the bow section. If you generally follow the curves you will wind up with a nice "pointy" end with a pleasing shear.

The result could be one-handed into the water from the deck and you could have a "real" inflatable conveniently stowed using the Half-pea as a quick hop-over-the-side and row ashore to some close place when necessary (and when possible).

[troymclure]

Curious to hear how the half-pea works out i'm kinda in the same boat...

Well different boat but similar situation ^^.

I need too flake the anchor chain by hand or the windlass jams which can be done from inside the boat at the anchor locker but i prefer too be able too open the forward hatch so i can see how the chain is and generally keep an eye on boat/leeshores etc while i'm raising the anchor. This means that i've got limited deck space too store a dinghy, there was a RIB that came with the boat but storing it on deck blocks the hatch.

As a result my current dinghy is a 3m sit on top kayak. Which so far is fairly meh, on the one hand it's nice, as paddling too shore is alot nicer then motoring too shore, can get alot closer too marine life in general and is just generally more relaxing. On the other hand it makes anything more then a km away kind of a chore to get too is a bit worrisome in strong currents (ie 3-4 knots which is about hullspeed).

At the momet i'm thinking my next dinghy purchase will be a bigger kayak thats easier too paddle, hopefully a hobie with mirage drive. Eventually an inflateable with a small outboard would be nice as well.

[mrohr]

The dingy issues seem to have no pure solution ever,but the smaller portabote or some sort of kayak might be your best shot.
If you cruise at all, your your trips will be seriously compromised with a small dingy.Do you want to arrive on shore with a wet butt? How are you going to get back to your boat when the wind gets up against you? Are you going to leave that pretty lass that would love to see your floating home on the shore? How are you going to get that torn sail to the sailmaker?
BTW most cruisers today use inflatables,but, as with all else boatable , everything is a compromise. Hope this helps.

[Amgine]

The Sweet Pea was a real bugger to build; the tight curves frustrated me for more than a week and I admit they weren't perfectly pulled in before I got impatient and started gluing. I also tore out several of the holes I drilled in the piece for the 'wires' (I actually used zip ties, and snapped a *lot* of them during the tensioning process.)

What I would do differently:

• Be more patient; the first several tries at assembly were day-long frustration, then disassembly in preparation for the next try. Turned out to work better to leave it assembled and partly tensioned, come back and retension the next day, and then a third day (could have used a fourth day near the transom.)
• Put the sewing holes further from the seams and just plan on using wider tape.
• Plan on glassing the whole dinghy.
• Do a proper job of finishing. Don't bring it down to the boat until it's really done.
  
• Don't leave it on deck through the winters.

You can probably guess from the above that the dinghy didn't last well. I never got around to getting things completely finished, was never really satisfied with it. It rowed okay, was actually pretty fun to play around in but not a good working dinghy; there's not a lot of directional stability. Not going to work to drag out the storm anchor in a rolly anchorage. It attracts a lot of attention: this would be cool if well finished. Mine wasn't.

On the plus side, I could carry boat and oars at one time, pull it out of the water easily, and sail with it on the cabin top. If I build another one I'll add hardpoints to the fore to allow it to be tied down over the forehatch, allowing the hatch to be open while sailing. Having cruised a few thousands of miles with big and little dinghies, life is better with a limousine dinghy but I go further and have more fun with a smaller dinghy. If I want the luxuries, I tie up. But then, I sail cold waters, so YMMV.

[barnakiel]

Looks fine. Make sure it is big enough for your needs.

b.