Lille Ø

Altogether 36.5kg, fiberglass inside and out. Details are earlier in this thread. The dinghy starts to look like a layer of paint is needed. Let's see when we can be a couple of days without going anywhere.

As it happens, we transited the Panama Canal yesterday, and Isosaari is in Pacific waters. It was a bit tight, but we could fit all the canal lines and fenders in the dinghy in one run: This is from the Las Brisas dinghy dock in Panama City this morning:

Spanish Water, Curaçao Banedup, autonomous region of Guna Yala, Panama Linton Bay, Panama

Yes, I've seen that as well. We have a reef that removes the bottom 1m of the sail, and that helps. I'm not sure where I found it, but here's a picture how to set up reefs for standing lug without moving the center: So far we only have the 1st reef in place. That's something we could try, too! And probably a dyneema soft shackle for the parrel. We have purchase with a low-friction ring. That helps somewhat.

Inspired by another Spindrift on this forum, we built a standing lug rig for Isosaari. While it doesn't point as high as the old Europe rig, it is a lot quicker to set up. And sailing without a boom is much easier when two of us are on board, Both mast and the sail material came donated. Big difference in stability with this carbon mast compared to the aluminium. Brailing line makes it quick to get the sail depowered and out of the way when approaching a dock. Some in-action footage in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv-CamkgyzU

We just published a little YouTube video about our dinghy, showing both the construction and bunch of "in action" footage: Spoken Finnish, with subtitles in English.

I think a big difference between our Spindrifts and a deflatable is that for us the outboard is mostly a convenience, not a requirement. If the outboard doesn't work, we can still row and sail beautifully. They can't.

We sailed a lot more in Scotland where the anchorages were better and the winds lighter. But we've sailed some. It is always fun, just a hassle to rig up. Maybe we should try a simplified rig, like Aphers has. Let's see what we end up doing when we're anchored in Curaçao for the next few months.

We just watched that. Really a nice video! We've also dabbled at documenting our adventures on YouTube, but with nowhere near the production quality that you're able to make. It of course added a lot more to the video that I could recognise various spots that had been discussed here in this thread

We have a double-ender just like you, and hence no davits. Only time we leave the Spindrift in the water for a bit longer is at the dinghy dock, or if we anticipate another dinghy trip in a few hours. Otherwise we always hoist it. Takes just a minute or two. We rig a line between the bow and the quarter knees, and attach a halyard to that. Then we hoist the dinghy until it is on the level of one of our fender boards. Then tie the painter to bow cleat and another line from stern to mid cleat. Super stable there. So far the two-part paint (Perfection, sadly no longer available) has held up well in the tropics, except for where it has had too many interactions with concrete dinghy docks or whatever. We expect to do some touch-up when we're anchored for the hurricane season.

We're currently cruising the Caribbean with our lovely Spindrift 9N. We never saw another one in Europe, but I thought it might be interesting to share some of the Spindrifts we've seen in the wild here. There are always some creative solutions to be inspired by. On the "good rowing dinghy" side, we saw this heavily modified Spindrift 10 in Grenada. I love the oarlocks! He doesn't have an outboard, and rows everywhere with the 2.7m long oars. And goes fast too! This Spindrift 9N we met on Frigate Island. They sail everywhere, as the dinghy doesn't have oarlocks or an outboard. The sail was a cut-down mainsail from the "big boat" using a batten as a sort of a gaff, and they steered with a sculling oar. I believe the mast is from a windsurfer. We didn't meet the owner, but this Spindrift in Carriacou had a stayed mast: Any other interesting Spindrift sightings?

Thanks! Little risk of the batteries getting too cold here. We've lived on board through three Northern European winters (including freezing in for short periods). Our simple-but-efficient solution was to place the LiFePO4 back on top of where the diesel heater duct runs into the cabin. This means that even on cold days the battery compartment stays at least 15°C. This of course wouldn't work on a boat that's left unheated. Then you'd probably want to take the batteries off and store somewhere warm, or at least detach all charging sources (LiFePO4 can be discharged colder than charged). Today it is time to head to the chandleries. With only oars, our anti-theft solution for most of this Caribbean season has been to just tie the dinghy and take the oarlocks with us. But now that we have the outboard, we're going to want to lock the dinghy when we leave it. Here's the inital approach:

Today we picked up a new ePropulsion Spirit 1.0 Plus here in Grenada. At 1kW, it is more powerful than what our Spindrift 9N needs. On that level, the smaller eLite would be a better choice. But we bought the bigger outboard for the bigger battery capacity. Initial test runs in flat water say that at around 120W power we move at 3kt, and BMS estimates range to be 8.5h, so around 25NM. As a bonus, with some additional parts (a cable and a DC-DC converter), we will be able to use the ePropulsion battery as an emergency battery also for the big boat.

We tested a Torqeedo Travel XP (their most powerful model) with our Spindrift 9N, and it was definitely too powerful for our needs. But that's what a buddy boat had, so it was an easy thing to try. The dinghy motored quite beautifully as long as we kept it easy on the throttle. I talked with a fellow boater in Bequia with a hard dinghy of a very similar size to ours. They had the ePropulsion eLite and were very happy with it. Interesting recommendation was to motor with the centerboard down in heavier conditions. We have decided to look at one of the smaller integrated electric outboards (ePropulsion eLite, Temo 450, ThrustMe Kicker, etc). While similar performance could be had more cheaply with a trolling motor and a separate battery, I think the ease of use will also be important. The choice of what to buy will likely boil down to what we find here in the Caribbean. In the meanwhile, happily rowing and sailing around.

Sounds like a plan! If weather cooperates, heading west from Mindelo on Jan 2nd.

That's looking really good! Any photos on how it fits on the deck of the W32?

Next step is Cape Verde, then hopefully Caribbean. Then, we'll see. Right now the trip is kind of open-ended. We also realised recently that when packed on deck, the dinghy makes for a handy "bow solar arch". We have 2x 100W panels mounted to it. Very convenient, as sailing south all other panels are shaded by the rigging much of the time.

We've also made our way south since that post. Right now in Canary Islands. Here are some pictures of Isosaari in warmer places:

We've been now under way for three months. As expected, the dinghy has gotten a lot of use especially here in Scotland. We've sailed it to pub several times, and rowed to various shore-based adventures. As we had some guests visiting, we also found out it rows pretty well with three adults on board. So far we've found that the best way to assemble the dinghy is upright with the stern section tied to our inner forestay. This way we've been able to do it in winds over 20kt. Instead of a bridle we also deploy and hoist the dinghy vertically with a halyard tied to the painter. You'll see a lot of the dinghy in action in our June video (Finnish audio but with subtitles): It is soon time for some paint repair, as some of the rocky landings have left scratches in the bottom.

After several delays and other projects (we had to rebuild the cockpit floor on the big boat), on the long Easter weekend we could finally give the boat a proper spin. First of all, the deck mount a-frame setup works. No movement despite washing the decks in 30kt gusts The staysail clears the dinghy with no issues when tacking. Today we are rafted in an anchorage, and this gave the perfect excuse to take the Spindrift out for a spin. Quite light winds, but the dinghy sails very nicely! We'll need to still install the cam cleats for the sail controls, and find some battens.

Isosaari means “big island” in Finnish, just like the name of our big boat, Lille Ø means “small island” in Danish. Isosaari is also an island fortress and guest harbour outside of Helsinki in the Gulf of Finland.

The paint is finally dry, and we were able to test the running rigging setup. Now we know what dyneema we need to splice to make it work. Mast and boom have now been shortened and various hardware riveted on. When we got the mast up, it however became apparent that we made a dumb mistake: the Europe dinghy mast needs to rotate, and the current setup with the king plank doesn’t allow that. So we’ll need to widen the hole there to fit the Teflon ring that came with the mast. Yesterday we held the traditional naming ceremony for the dinghy. For that we dressed the boat pretty. Pretty good turnout, and a fun party! The president of the Berlin sailing federation gave a short speech, and we did the naming rituals in both Finnish and German. So, introducing Spindrift 9N #1579, Isosaari: In the other news, we just received an old Europe dinghy sail that we should be able to modify to fit the boat. Really looking forward to the first test sail!

We've been busy with projects on the big boat (annual engine service, dropping the mast for standing rigging replacement, re-coring the forward hatch, etc). Now we finally got the chance to move forward with the Spindrift. The big part was installing the mast step, and modifying the king plank for the Europe mast. Here's a test fit, the mast still needs to be shortened: As is traditional, we installed a coin in the mast step. The 2024 German two euro coin features the white cliffs of Königsstuhl. Very fitting, as it is often the last sight of Germany for us when we head out to sea... We aim to have the mast ready for the weekend. We should get an old Europe dinghy sail to modify then. Our oars also arrived. I would've ordered a little bit longer ones, but the Finnish company sadly only sells this model into Germany. But on the positive side, they fit perfectly inside the bow section.

That’s looking great! I wish we had the time for a couple of more rounds of fairing. Oh well, whenever the boat needs a repaint…

That's certainly a priority now! I've been going over the Europe dinghy class rules to see what we need to change. Seems to include: * Shorten the boom by 44cm * Shorten the mast by 45cm * Move gooseneck attachment higher, and adjust sail entry gate accordingly * Get rid of the upper bearing ring as it is too wide to fit on our king plank * Figure out where and how to cut and sleeve the mast for storage