looking Construction plans for a fiberglass dinghy

[Scott]

Hi, Anyone out there know a good source for a set of plans for a fiberglass dinghy. Perferably one that can also be converted to a little sailboat for the kids. I see one on the Glen-L site, but it calls for C-Flex material which I have never ever been able to track down. I would prefer one where a person simply lays up the fiberglass cloth; matt; roving etc. on a male mould.
Thanks, Scott

PS: The plywood punt I made for my soon to be sold boat(hopefully!) is going with it,so I need another tender and would like to attempt to build an entirely fiberglass one as above.

[Figment]

If it's mostly for the kids, I urge you to consider a stitch-n-glue Optimist. It's not pure fiberglass, but really the whole thing of doing a male mold (essentially building a "pre-boat") for a one-off pure glass boat is kinda silly.

[bcooke]

I have toyed with the idea of using my current nutshell pram ( a really excellent boat) as a plug for a fiberglass model but as Mike seems to suggest, it isn't very practical. That and the fact that I have bigger fish to fry keeps me out of any more trouble.

I don't know of any fiberglass specific plans but I would think you could build any small boat using basic plywood and then using the whole thing as a plug for your fiberglass shell.

Another idea might be to take a set of plans and instead of cutting the panels/planking out of wood or plywood you could cut them out of some sort of coring and then cover them using a vacuum bag system with fiberglass. I bet you could make one heck of a light boat using that method.

I think any method is going to be more time consuming that a wood/plywood planked boat though. I would be curious to hear what you come up with.

-Britton

[JetStream]

I think the stitch and glue dinghys are much more practical to build. I'm currently building an eleven foot "nesting" dinghy that can be rowed, sailed or motored. It is really practical for a cruising boat as it can be stowed in just 5-1/2' on deck. I've really been impressed by this designer, both with his designs and his attention to customers. You can call him anytime with questions or whatever and he even has a faithful website following for people that have built his designs. The link is http://bandbyachtdesigns.com/ (B&B Yacht Designs). I'm building the Spindrift 11N. Even the mast is designed to be stowed in less than an 8' section, while being about 18' assembled. The entire dinghy weighs only about 100 pounds and that would be tough to beat in solid fiberglass.

[catamount]

Another idea might be to take a set of plans and instead of cutting the panels/planking out of wood or plywood you could cut them out of some sort of coring and then cover them using a vacuum bag system with fiberglass. I bet you could make one heck of a light boat using that method.

It's been done -- the "blue foam dinghy" or BFD (using regular blue styrofoam house insulation).





Unfortunately, the web-site describing its construction seems to be incomplete: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/8005/bfd/bfd.htm

Regards,

[Figment]

I just stumbled onto this....
Article on a taped-plywood Optimist.

[Scott]

My idea was to simply (is anything really simple?) build a dinghy of my own creation whose main use would be that as a tender for my sailboat. In the process I wanted to work with fiberglass as opposed to wood epoxy, so as to gain some experience working with polyester resins and the layup of fiberglass laminates. I am not looking for perfection as anything that I manage to come up with will never win a beauty contest!!
For that matter I could probably use my old dinghy for a male mold.

However,there are a multitude of books at the library with plans of various designs that would have to be lofted of course, but my main question I guess, is whether or not anyone can tell me what would be a suitable layup for an 8 to 10 dinghy/tender might be. Such as what to lay up first; how many layers; what to sandwich between what, that sort of thing.
Thanks Scott

[kendall]

Was looking for some info a while ago and found this place, has a bunch of plans for boats for sale, including the plans for the O'day sprite, called spirite there. He is the designer of the sprite.

www.by-the-sea.com/bakerboatworks/

ken.