Dinghies & Tenders - for Rowing and Sailing
A 9.5' Tender
This design was originally created in the early ’90s. At the time I was working in a shop in Toronto – The Tender Craft Boat Shop. We produced an 8′ GRP tender – “The Proper Yacht Tender”, well finished with cherry thwarts, ash wales, bronze fittings, and a canvas neoprene gunnel guard trim.
The 9.5′ tender was in response to an almost whimsical request at the International Boat Show – a few boats came about that way. Armed with a new drafting table, home made splines & weights, and a copy of Chapelle’s “Yacht Designing and Planning”, I drew the 9.5.
It was originally built using a very popular wood strip epoxy method with good results. I believe the design to be handsome – and the design provided sufficient volume to be a practical tender for rowing, and good fun (if not blisteringly fast) sailing. I built 3 or 4 of them myself, and the plans were marketed as a kit as well. I designed a similar boat in 8′ – more volume than the original Proper Yacht Tender – It was again marketed as a kit.
Not too long ago, I came upon the original drawings on velum – and thought it might be fun to “digitize” them; taking advantage of good CAD software such as Rhino, and Orca3D. The renderings below gives you some idea of the work in progress.
Now drawn as a lapstrake boat; I acquired a little extra knowledge on how to create individual lapped planks in Rhino – it’s easier in real life.
It is a work in progress. The completed revisions will result in fair lines to the inside of plank – enabling construction of a lapstrake boat, or in woodstrip epoxy.
If I find them, I will do the same for the 8′ version – and for a 12′ rowboat of which I built a single boat and never published the plans – the original boat was an anniversary gift to my father.
9.5' Tender - "Tender To Aisling Fliuch" Lapstrake Sailing and Rowing Versions
Length – 9’6″
Beam – 3’8″
Construction – Tradition lapstrake, glued lapstrake ply, or woodstrip epoxy (cedarstrip)
Sail Rig – Solent Lug – all spars fit within the boat!
Sail Area – 42 sqft
Other Dinghies
This 12′ Dinghy was originally built as an anniversary gift for my Mum & Dad in ’92. My Dad loved to row. He was a member of the Cambridge University Eight Crew which had some success in ’46.
The original boat pictured here was very much an “eyeball” design & build (I did quite a bit of that back then), and it turned out quite nice.
I hope to dig out the paper patterns I created back then, and turn them into a proper design file – Check back!