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By Dan Brooks - Southland, New Zealand
Dan's Boats Online

Hi Chuck,

I spend quite a bit of time reading though Duckworks Magazine, often while chewing though my cereal in the mornings. It was on one of these such mornings that after clicking on a few links and doing a search or two that I happened upon a website, called Hannu’s Boatyard. I was rather taken by one particular design of his, the Portuguese Style Dingy, so much so that I found myself at the timber yard a few days later.

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click to enlarge

This is the third plywood and epoxy boat I have made and by far the simplest and quickest to construct one of them all. For the reasons I stated above I just had to make it, and it doesn't look half bad either. The last one I made was a John Welsford designed Trover, which I recently added a 25hp Yamaha to, in replace of the old 15hp. She hands it well, with a big performance increase. I took a short video and posted it on YouTube, see it HERE.

At full speed with no weight up front she will bounce a bit, but I think that adds to the fun. But put a second person onboard and that disappears.

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Back to the dingy; I was only half way into the building process when a neighbor came over and noticed her in the workshop and said "That's just what I need, name your price". I was quite shocked, I hadn't had anyone offer me money for something I'd made before, never mind something only half built. I though I'd best wait until I'm sure it floats, before I look at selling it or building another.

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click to enlarge

I ended up epoxy coating the whole boat, taped up the seams and also used some spare cloth to fiber glass the bottom. Maybe a bit “OTT” for such a small craft. So she's turned out pretty tough, with epoxy, two coats of undercoat and three topcoats. I made the seat a little higher, but I liked the idea of the central split seat arrangement. So I used some 12mm ply, with a reinforced strip of 40x40mm underneath. It works well; it also gives you something to hold onto when you’re lugging it to and from the water.

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click to enlarge

I tested the boat in the duck pond over the weekend; she handles well and darts around the pond with ease. It's a small, light boat so as expected it's very sensitive to weight distribution. Although saying that you'd have to lean over the side a fair distance to make her fill with water. As the plans suggested I left out the skeg, and really I’m not sure it needs one on a boat this small. She’s going to be a useful little boat and I don’t really want to part with it right now. It looks like I’ll be making a second sometime soon!

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click to enlarge

Yours, Daniel Brooks

The PSD plans are HERE;

See Dan's Trover Report HERE:


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