Aphers

Why not just buy a 12v trolling motor? Then you only need four cells. Of course lower voltage means you need to deal with bigger currents, bit on these motors it's never going to be anything massive. Mine was the most powerful 12v available and it drew 53A.

That's a lot of money for a battery. My lithium battery was cheaper than that, and gives nearly twice the useable capacity at about half the weight.

I used a Bison 88lb motor on my S11N, powered by a 60Ah LFP battery. Pros: quiet, reliable, instant power including reverse. Happily took the dinghy to 4.5kt. Battery gave an hour of endurance at full power. No fuel smells, costs, spills, or mixing. Relatively cheap to buy. Cons: Not any faster than sailing, nor much faster than a motivated rower. The cheap non-Bluetooth battery has no way of telling you how charged it is (by the time the voltage starts dropping, it's nearly flat). Build quality on the supposedly saltwater rated Bison was very flimsy compared to any petrol outboard. Lots of plated mild steel components, plastic transom clamps. No easy way to secure the battery against theft. Biggest problem of all was the connection to the battery. I just had eyes crimped on to the motor cables, and I fixed these to the battery terminals. No weatherproofing of any kind. Inevitably things get splashed or dropped, corrosion sets in, and you start getting hot connections and power loss. I chopped the end of the cable and crimped on a new eye several times. I'm going to resurrect the idea, but I will choose a smaller motor with lower power requirements. That will make it easier to source suitable waterproof connectors. I will mount the battery in a box with a battery monitor, and make sure it has a strong point to lock it to the dinghy.

I really like the idea of rubber/foam inside the fire hose. I'm in the middle of making some changes to my Spindrift and am about to go on to my third set of pool noodles. So I'm getting about a year of full time use from them. This time around, I'm going to try making up a sleeve to go over them, as I have an old yacht mainsail to dispose of. It should help protect against UV and rough docks taking chunks out of the foam.

Not being one to opt for obvious or easy answers, my Spindrift 11N has, over the past three years or so, sported three different masts, five sails, a boom, a sprit, a yard, and a wishbone. This all came about after running out of time and money on my build. Being located in the north of Scotland where appropriate donor rigs are scarce and materials to build one to plan were hard to source, I initially adapted the only rig I could find, which came from an OK class dinghy. I used the OK mast, with a sail from a 420, and a boom made from a section of broken mast. In theory it was almost exactly the correct dimensions for the boat. In practice, the very heavy section OK mast was a bit of a nightmare. It weighed around 7kg and was almost impossible to step unless conditions were very calm. It was impossible to climb around it to get to the bow because the weight aloft made the boat so unstable. The 420 sail was also in very poor condition, so I later had a sail loft modify the original OK sail by adding an eye, which made it fit the slightly cut down mast. Didn't solve the stability problems though! Fast forward a year and a chance encounter on a beach in Martinique. I come away with a partial windsurf rig. Four piece mast and a 5.5m² sail. Used loose footed, this became my go-to rig for about a year. It was fairly practical and performed well, but holding the sail out on a run became a bit tedious. The shorter, lighter, mast transformed the stability of the boat though. A friend then gave me a sprit rig which looked good but had a very flat cut sail and didn't really work well at all. I later used the mast from this rig, plus sections of the windsurf mast, to try to create a tall but light mast so that I could use the OK sail again. But the resulting mast was simply too bendy and lost its shape as soon as I put on halyard tension. So I binned that project. Next upgrade was when a friend found a wishbone on the beach, which I added to the previously loose footed configuration. Now we could really sail! Performance was good on all points of sail, and I could add a purchase to the sheet, reducing the loads to a comfortable level. I used this rig for another year or so and was very happy with it. But the sail gradually began to suffer from UV damage, and became increasingly baggy. And setting up or putting away the rig was a pain because the wishbone, which is close to head height, needed to be lashed in place every time, which was awkward. These things are designed to be set up lying on a beach, not within a boat. And now on to the latest rig: a chance encounter with another cruiser, a swap for a box of beer, and I now have a lovely, crisp, unused, tan brown sail for a small gaffer. It's only 4.3m2 (compared to 5.5m² for the windsurf). I hastily lashed something together, flying out as a standing lug using a broom handle as a yard, and without a boom. Early days but so far I am very pleased with it. The sail can be raised or lowered in seconds. Luff tension is easily adjusted with a downhaul. The short yard is very easily stowed. It's all just effortlessly practical. Of course windward performance isn't quite as good, and the loose foot means high sheet loads as I prefer not to have a block whipping around on the clew. But I think these compromises are worth it. All in all, it's been an interesting exercise messing about with this little boat and the different incarnations of the rig. No doubt it would have been easier just to have built to plan in the first place, but where's the fun in that... Original rig. Note the bundled up excess sail. Photo taken in Menorca, Balearic Islands. Windsurf, with wishbone. Surprisingly good. Photo taken in British Virgin Islands. Current rig- standing lug. Excuse the lack of luff tension in this photo! Antigua.

Hi Tim, thanks for asking. Sadly the big boat didn't make it through. But we are afloat again on a different boat, and we got the Spindrift back! I've just been experimenting with a standing lug rig on it, I'll post about that when I get round to it.

We did the crossing a couple of years ago. Look us up when you get to the Caribbean!

Great posts, thanks for sharing. What was your finished weight? And how are you getting those kinds of speeds from a 2.2hp?? I can get to about 6.5kt with my 3.5hp... I've done over 7kt, but only under sail.

Looks good. It's very hard to put a value on this. The market for people who want this kind of busy, but don't want to build their own, is going to be pretty small. I spent about £800 building my 11N (using a donated rig to keep the cost down), and it took three months of every evening and weekend I had. I enjoyed the process and I enjoy using the boat, in part because of the satisfaction of having built it myself. I've also incorporated a few design details to suit my needs, and gained the skills that allowed me to repair it when it got hit by a motorboat. But to sum up... if you'd been offering this for sale back when I was about to build mine, I'd likely have been happy to offer you at least £1000, and I would have got three months of my life back... Maybe someone else would offer considerably more. Certainly if you add up the materials and factor in the labour, it would likely cost £4000 or so to have one built professionally. Good luck anyway...

You're not far off the mark! Finding out that the dinghy was ok has marked a real emotional turning point. It's looking like the damage to the big boat is essentially similar to what happened to the dinghy a couple of years ago, just on a far larger scale and involving fibreglass rather than plywood. The islands have been very badly hit. There's no water or power just now, but relief efforts are well under way. Some drone footage shows the part of the island where our boat is- it's pretty tough to see a place we know and live reduced to rubble. Many yachts flipped upside down in the mangroves. We were lucky in some ways. You can spot our boat about 3:30 in to this: https://youtu.be/IhxOM6hp_6Q?si=Wgf2I5IuGH0gtqu9&sfnsn=scwspwa

As I'm sure everybody will be aware, the east Caribbean was hit a few days ago by an extremely powerful hurricane. Earlier, stronger, and further south than any previously recorded. With gusts of around 190mph, it was touching cat 5 as it made landfall in Carriacou. Which happens to be where I left my boat for the summer. It's very early days and we don't know the full extent of the damage. And obviously at this stage all efforts are focused on helping the islanders who have lost almost everything. Around 85% of homes are thought to be uninhabitable and power and water supplies are disrupted. Anyway, through what has been a brutally difficult experience, I've had one piece of good news. A friend on the island sent me some pictures of my boat, and my Spindrift 11N is still safely strapped down on deck. Absolutely amazing. I had resigned myself to never seeing the dinghy again. It's lost a few lives now- crushed by a motorboat, adrift twice, run on to a reef... but it lives to sail another day. And just the boost I needed right now.

Looks great! It's such a huge transformation. I painted my boat with it in two halves, hanging from overhead beams. This let me access almost every part of the boat in one go, instead of having to do it in stages. My paint supplier said I didn't need primer. I only actually did two coats initially, but I generally add a full coat once a year now that the boat is in daily use, plus patch repairs where necessary.

I've never had a problem with it tbh. My first boat was a Wayfarer (16ft dinghy) and it used a bolt rope. It was pretty easy to put a reef in. I suppose sliders would have kept the bunt of the sail a bit neater but I had eyelets with lashings for that. I'm sure that on larger boats it would be beneficial to use sliders.

So today I tried out the new rig. Windsurf mast with dinghy sail. Long story short, it's not going to work out. The mast just isn't stiff enough. As soon as you put any halyard tension on, the mast bends like an over ripe banana. It's a shame, because I'd put a bit of work in to this setup, and I was hoping for some good performance with a light enough mast that it would be stable enough to be left afloat rigged. But I guess I'll just stick with my trusty windsurf rig...

If I add eyes to the luff, whether for sliders or lacing, what spacing would be suitable? Using just bits and bobs I already have in stock, I'd be looking at 49cm between eyes. Is that a bit too far apart?

What's the advantage of slides over a bolt rope?

One of my rigs has a track and a halyard (btw I'm not sure I see any benefit to slugs over just using the bolt rope?). The other is sleeved. Both work pretty well. A lighter version of the tracked rig would be great. But the sleeved one is fine. Only once have I found myself unable to 'plant the flag' when I was trying to rig in a stiff breeze. With that rig, I often just roll up the sail loosely and tie it to the mast. It has a full length top batten so it does still have a bit of windage, but it works very well if I'm just making a quick stop to pick up laundry etc. I generally put the sail tie on a slip knot so setting off is a case of jumping aboard and pulling the tie; one pull on the sheet and the sail unfurls and we're away. If I'm being pinned on to the dock by the breeze I can usually give a hefty enough push at I get aboard to get clear and start sailing. It's all very drama free. If I convert my tracked sail to laced or sleeved, is there anything preventing me from having it open at the top, and using a halyard?

Over the couple of years I've had my Spindrift, I've managed to collect a whole assortment of different sails and spars, which have been effective in varying degrees. Current rig of choice is from a windsurf, with a wishbone boom. Perfectly happy with its performance, and the four piece mast stows away to nothing. But the wishbone is not the easiest thing to set up if you're already out at sea. The sail is also getting very tired- it's had an awful lot of use, almost daily for the past year or so. What I'd really like to do is switch to a more conventional rig. I've got a great sail from an OK class dinghy, which has a bolt rope. The mast I have for it is very heavy aluminium tube with a track. I want to use a windsurf mast instead, bit of course that has no track. I think my options are: - rivet and/or epoxy the track on to the grp mast (not sure this is structurally a great plan) - get a sailmaker to sew on a luff sleeve (I'm guessing this is the best, but costliest, option) - install eyelets along the luff, and lace the sail to the mast (very DIY friendly, low cost) I'll need to figure out how to make a gooseneck but maybe a simple plastic claw (rowlock?) would work. I'm hoping to avoid a trip to the sailmaker partly for cost and partly because, as a full time cruiser, I don't like having to be tied to being in a certain place for any length of time.

That has to be one of the fastest builds I've seen. Well done. If you think rowing is fun, wait until you get your rig sorted ?

I used a two pack paint called Lustre, from a company called SML in the UK. It was brilliant. They recommended that I could use it directly on to the epoxy without an undercoat, and a 2.5l can easily did the whole boat with a bit left over. Two pack is fantastic compared to single. Far more durable. Since leaving the UK I've had to switch to Perfection, as that's what is available. I generally touch up every 3-6 months depending on how badly the dinghy has been treated, and about once a year I've ended up doing a full recoat. The boat is in daily use and bumps happen. Perfection is a good product but the hardener is highly hygroscopic. Once you've opened it, you've got a few weeks to use it before it goes to jelly. It's particularly bad out here in the Caribbean with the heat and humidity. International do not sell the hardener separately. I now have three tins of the 'A' part and have just opened my third and final 'B'. I've heard that the Awlgrip 'Awlcat #3' hardener is the same chemical, and is available separately, but it's wickedly expensive. And presumably it has the same problems with going off after opening. Interestingly, the tiny bit of Lustre hardener that I still have remains liquid in the can, so whatever they are using is more suitable for long term storage. Despite the drawbacks of two pack, I would not use single pack on a tender.

You're resisting the temptation to leave anything bright, then? I couldn't quite bring myself to cover every last bit of wood, so I left the dagger board case capping varnished. And it's a bit of a pain trying to keep on top of it ?. Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have left the transom varnished. Maybe on the next boat...

Depends on how much of the time the boat spends disassembled. Ours goes on deck for long passages only.

My method was to use thin but stiff plastic (I used laminated sheets of paper) inserted in to the gap between the two halves, and sticking out by an inch or so. Where the two halves meet there is a slight radius and it looks better if this is filled, so the plastic gives you an edge to work to. I used microfibres and was a little generous, over filling slightly. After it had cured, I removed the plastic and then carefully sanded the filled area to ensure that it was a perfect match both sides. I was really pleased with how this turned out, with a really good crisp edge and almost invisible join line.

Is there a risk that changes in temperature/pressure will cause damage to a totally sealed tank? I often hear a strong hiss when I open mine up. For that reason I've put a partially crushed plastic bottle, with lid on, inside each tank. The idea is that it will absorb any changes in pressure. Maybe it's totally unnecessary but it's not doing any harm.

.