Tender/Dinghy with makeshift sailing rig vs outboard

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "You never met anyone who had an outboard on their dinghy until you came to this forum? That's extraordinary."

Not this forum - these shores :-) About 60 years ago.

TP

[Benz]

I have a 9' homemade rowing dinghy as our cruising tender, and I made a simple sail kit for it with a leeboard. The sail kit was just for fun, since having the family of five aboard didn't leave much room for maneuvers. But we rowed it exclusively, and I have to say that if you become proficient at rowing, it doesn't limit you too much. We have rowed several miles in a day, exploring, and there was only one time when a serious ebb current would have kept us from safely returning to our boat and we hitched a ride with a motor dinghy rather than waiting for the slack.
Surely there are many reasons pro or con an outboard, but I can testify that a rowing dinghy has been all I've ever needed or wanted. And the sail kit, though not very efficient due to the leeboard, was pretty fun for trolling for fish or doing a grocery run when by myself.
Ben
zartmancruising dot com

[foufou]

I have built several dinghy rigs and found that any primitive or funky attempts do not perform adequately. Getting the sail design right is very important for going to weather. Sailrite makes good sail kits. Good center board or dagger board design is also important. I was fortunate to be given a two piece carbon wind surfer mast. Now time to make an efficient sail

[UNCIVILIZED]

You can get/make dinghies that sail well, the trouble is that the cost of doing so is often fairly stiff. So that if the budget is tight you may have to choose OB vs. sailing rig. Simply because few "simple" sailing rigs for dinghies enable them to sail well. So a good, long set of oars, & an inexpensive OB for a hard dink may be the way to go. Although a dink that sails well is a grand thing, & often much coveted. One is the PT11 at www.ptwatercraft.com though it's far from inexpensive.

[NakedCity]

Cheechako I'm with you and obviously a minority in this discussion. I love my 11' rib with 2stroke 15hp. Adds to my cruising enjoyment tremendously. My partner and I will often make quick 10 to 20 mile runs .

[Delancey]

Sailing rig expensive, but an outboard is cheap? Um. Okay.

[Snowpetrel]

I set my old 8 foot dinghy up with a 7'8 mast and boomless standing lug. The rig would stow inside the dinghy for longer exploration trips. My 2 hp outboard could stay on the transom, and I used the oar to steer and the chine as lateral plane to sail effectively on a reach. It didn't go to windward well, but it could make slow ground upwind at a pinch. It was sailed much like a Mersey Duck Punt using bodyweight to steer.

I had some great row/sail explorations up the rivers and shallows in Port Davey, Tasmania with this setup. The outboard was good for the longer runs in deep water, or with the wind on the nose. The oars were quiet and efficient for general use, and the simple rig was great when the wind cooperated.

I think if you are trying to avoid an outboard focus on really good rowing capability first. Ideally it can take a small 2 or 3.5 hp outboard if necessary. And choose a small light rig that is easily stowed onboard the dinghy out of the way and is easy struck and set while underway. A daggerboard will be a nuisance in shallow water. Leeboards add clutter, and a centreboard adds lots of permanent weight. So no ideal solution here. I wonder if leeboards could double as removable thwarts? Rudders are bulky to stow. An oar works Ok and is simple, but is not as nice to use as a rudder.

Most of the time the sailing rig only adds clutter and weight and rowing is pleasant exercise on a decent rowing hull. Problem is now that very few dinghys actually row properly so these days so most people think rowing is a painfull, slow and uncomfortable way to get around. But in a well designed dinghy with good oars and ergonomics rowing a few miles or more is quite pleasant, more like walking.

My current dinghy build is a narrow 12 foot skiff that will eventually have a very simple sailing rig made from lightweight cutdown windsurfer masts. I am thinking of storing them out of the way inside a full length longitudinal seat that will reinforce the flat bottom. The narrow flared hull doesn't need much sail to drive it fast. The rig will be very easy to set and drop otherwise it isn't going to get used very often because it will be more convenient just to row.

One benefit of a long lean design like this is that it also goes very well with a tiny outboard just ticking over. It should make 4.5 kts with my 2 hp outboard on about half throttle just sipping the fuel and with not to much noise, weight or wash.

[TrentePieds]

Snowpetrel has rung most of the essential bells, but the comment about the longitudinal seat is very apposite indeed. However the principal raison d'etre for the "long seat" is not that it is useful for stowage, but that it permits you to trim the boat to best advantage. One reason that rowing's acquired an awful reputation is that the fore'n'aft trim in tiny, short rowboats is so very sensitive to where you place the cargo, including the rower. The longitudinal seat permits cargo, including passengers and rower, to be placed fore'n'aft in positions conducing to optimum trim.

To take full advantage of this, you need multiple tholes so you can place the rowlocks where their position is not too divergent from what is most comfortable for the rower, and from what is conducive to the application of muscle.

Don't think I'll ever get to it, but I fantasize about building a modified Whitehall-cum-Thames skiff, using cedar stip-plank rather than clinker planking or stitch'n'glue plywood. It would have the long seat, with "lockers" for carrying provisions forward and aft of a trunk for a hinged centreboard. A detachable "kick-up" rudder would be stowable across the transom and short spars for a lug rig would stow fore'n'aft hard up against the long seat. As the boat would have no thwarts, stowing the spars permanently strapped to the fore'n'aft bulkheads of the seat should be no problem.

She would have to be quite narrow because she is short (10 feet being all I can carry on deck), so I would borrow from the Oxford Wherry and have outriggers to give sufficient width over the rowlocks. Tricky bit of design required there :-). The whole kit'n'kaboodle should come in at something like 60lbs and would be brought on deck by means of a whisker pole-cum-cargo boom cunningly managed via the spinny halyard and a "runner" on the boom.

I'm getting carried away :-) You can buy these kinds of things for about 6 grand ready to go. So perhaps - for that money - I'll just by a sistership to TP and MB and I can go cruising as a flotilla :-)

Cheers

TP

[Snowpetrel]

That sounds like it would be a lovely dink TP. Mine will be a lot cruder more like a bigger version of this http://sailingcatamarans.com/index.p...sailrow-dinghy .

But I also love the idea of a Whitehall shape. Prehaps something like a Ian Oughtred Acorn design...

[Ida_Lewis]

I just ordered one of these --couldn't help myself. I'll let you know how it works out...

DinghyGo, the inflatable sailboat website

[TrentePieds]

Quote "Prehaps something like a Ian Oughtred Acorn design..."

Yes, indeed - perhaps something like an Oughtred design :-)!! Oughtred combines the sensibilities of the sculptor with the technical virtuosity of the cabinet maker. He is to small boats what IMO Billy Garden was to big boats.

Unfortunately my draughting table has been stowed away for some time, and the Salish Sea calls. I am unable to get my head around computerized draughting - nay, truth is: I refuse! So, perhaps, come the dark days of autumn I'll see what I can do about knocking out a set of lines. If TP were big enough to carry a workbench, which she is not, I'd knock out a half-model during the summer's cruising.

I took the opportunity to check out your "Ramblings". I am impressed and intrigued! What is this Soren Larsen vessel you mention? You already know why that has piqued my curiosity :-)!

TP

[michaelratinter]

We have an 8 ft Fatty Knees dinghy with cat rigged sail, oars, and British Seagull OB. Works fine in all modes.

[valhalla360]

Your ID indicates you don't have a boat. Since you are apparently on a tight budget, that suggests you will be getting a small boat. Small boats need a light compact dingy which typically translates to an inflatable as you don't have the deck space for a hard dingy and you can't get davits high enough for anything but modest conditions.

Inflatables don't make good sailing or rowing.

[Delancey]

Chameleon nesting dinghy designed by Danny Green of Bermuda. http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...hy-156370.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a2g7Ds2CRB8

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

So what you want is really "old school", and easy enuff to contrive, but dinghies like all other boats are compromises, e.g. you cannot have an 8 or 10 foot dinghy that will carry an OB on the transom and ALSO row and sail well. You pays yer money and takes yer pick!

As for rowing qualities, the "ideal" has to be the "Whitehall" model. Look it up. It's a "waterman's" boat developed in windship days for such things as taxi-service in New York Harbour. They had to carry significant weight for their size. You couldn't make your wages as a waterman in a boat that didn't row well while carrying significant paying cargo in terms of people and goods, and that is what the Whitehall does. However, you can only retain the "model" (the lines) down to a certain length. Then the beam becomes too narrow for practical purposes, among them the leverage you get from the moment arm between you hand and the rowlock. Minimum practical length would be around 12 feet.


TP

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