Our friends at Chesapeake Light Craft will soon be heading west for the Madison WI, and Port Townsend, WA boat festivals. This is a great opportunity to save on shipping!
Save a bunch of money on shipping! Give us a call and we'll bring your big, heavy stuff with us for pickup in Madison and Port Townsend. Boat kits, big heavy items like rowing units, oars, even small orders of plywood, stuff that can be difficult (and expensive) to ship. Boat kit orders are due by August 16 so we have time to cut, pack, and stow in the rig. This offer's only good until space runs out. Call us today!
There was a time when we tried to redesign our footbraces for the PT 11 nesting dinghy to be easily removable since our standard footbraces are epoxied in place.
We used a heavy duty velcro type of material from 3M to attach them. It held really well if you pulled up but you could easily sheer them right off when bracing your foot or shoe against them! It was one of those 'oops' moments.
We have been storing a box of these shaped Sapele footbraces that are a little taller than our standard and tapered. We'd like to find good homes for them!
See the BUY NOW below or contact our gmail: PTWATERCRAFT@
Because of their dimensions, they have to ship in a small priority box for $10. The footbraces themselves are on offer at $15 for a set of 4 or $25 for a set of 8 while supplies last.
Our standard footbraces in a completed PT 11 nesting dinghy.
The PT 11 uses 8 footbraces intended to allow 2 trim positions for a tall person and a shorter person so if there is usually only one rower, 4 footbraces is enough. The forward and aft positions are to adjust trim based on the load. This is a limited offer and for addresses within the lower 48 United States. If you are local in Port Townsend, contact us for "will call", ie, no shipping.
...any rower/kayaker/dinghy sailor who might be interested in a pair of auto-bailers. I bought them for my Penguin racing dinghy about 60 years ago and never installed them, so they are still like new, with instructions, installation templates, and mounting fasteners as purchased. Here is a link to photos:
Mine were branded "Falcon." Almost exactly the same item is sold by various marine stores, branded "Anderson," for ~$60 to $80 each today. I would like to be paid $60 for my pair, or best offer.
Contact ptwatercraft @ Gmail.com to be connected to the seller located in Davis California.
PT Wooden Boat Festival time again! September 9-12. The PT 11 will be displayed at the Chesapeake Light Craft booth on "THE POINT" near WEST SYSTEM and the Wee Nip. We hope to see you there! AB 😉
Chesapeake Light Craft is offering to bring your PT 11 kit to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival happening September 9-11, 2022. If you are regional, plan to attend the festival, and have been wanting to get a PT 11 kit but balked at cross country shipping, now is a good opportunity to order.
In case you were not aware, this July 4th, 2022 weekend, Chesapeake Light Craft is having a store wide sale and that includes the PT Eleven nesting dinghy kit. Click image below to learn more.
As previously mentioned, 2020-21 was largely spent reviewing our production process. Another redesign included the PT 11 foils kit. We took our ideas to Paul Bieker of Bieker Boats for his expertise with foil design. The new foils are thinner, using 18mm Birch plywood instead of 24mm Okoume. The Birch plywood is more dense, chosen for its strength at this thickness and not for it's looks. The machined birch plywood is not as handsome for clear coating as the Okoume but we are quite pleased with the overall change.
Modifying the foils kits affected many other parts of the kit, so those changes are are reflected in a total rewrite of the foils manual and changes in the boat itself (the daggerboard trunk is narrower, etc).
Machining the daggerboard and rudder from high-grade plywood is a good way to produce very efficient and relatively light foils. The process is far from easy though. It has taken much trial and error and a very good CNC programmer (Turn Point Design) to come up with the final product. The price of this foils kit reflects quite a lot of machine time for each set.
Left, the Okoume daggerboard blank. Right, the Birch Daggerboard blankRudder blanks using Okoume on the left and Birch on the right.Fore-shortened image showing the NACA foil shape with lines of tape.PT 11 foils 2022. Painted foils look good!The new daggerboard hold down uses the existing trunk cap turn-dog and a composite "pin" that is bonded into the dagerboard.The complete 2022 PT 11 foils kit as sold by Chesapeake Light Craft.
This first quarter of 2022 has been interesting for Russell and I here at Port Townsend Watercraft.
Chesapeake Light Craft continues successful production of the PT 11 Nesting Dinghy Kit. You can see the details on their page here.
What has changed?
PT 11 Nesting Dinghy kit packed for shipping from Chesapeake Light Craft 2022
There is a price difference from our previous rates. This was to be expected. For one thing, CLC includes the WEST SYSTEM Epoxy Kit that had been an option on our package. We are happy about this because we have always recommended WEST SYSTEM for this project. Anther big one is that our cost of the connective hardware doubled. They are, however, exquisite thanks to a local machine shop here in PT. The total kit price hike reflects both the inclusion of the epoxy kit and material price increases across the board from plywood to stainless steel. That considered, customer investment has not increased by much because we made efforts to streamline production of certain parts to offset those inevitable material price increases. Russell and I would have been hard pressed to continue production on our own with all this factored in..
CLC also has a well established packing system for their kits. This makes the kit package more manageable than our long and heavy plywood crate.
In our shop in Port Townsend we have finally been touched by the "supply chain delays" talked about in the daily news streams. A lack of sail cloth, delayed our sail production. We finally learned this after several ETA predictions that came and went without sails. We are assured this time that sails are on their way so we can ship out the rigs on order. (Talk about stress!)Russell has been doing a deep dive into the boat building technique referred to as 'Tortured plywood'. One of the 3 foot models (of which there are at least 8 versions), have been translated into 27ft long hulls. This project has been both exciting and frustrating beyond expectation. More to come on that later.
Early and very deceptive stage of tortured plywood hulls. This technique is somewhat miraculous.Jzerro 'flying' in Puget Sound
Those who know about Russell's earlier boats, including his windward proas, may have seen our videos of "Jzerro". We sold Jzerro a few years ago and of late, have anxiously followed the new owner Ryan Finn, on his massive journey from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. This last week, Ryan rounded Cape Horn successfully and has been flying northward at speeds from 9 to 19MPH on the edges of and through gales and rough seas. You can follow his tracker progress here.
Also see 2 Oceans 1 Rock on FB for descriptions of his journey.
More updates to come soon, including the 2022 Shipwright's Regatta this Saturday (Postponed a month due to a gale in the bay in FEB 26th. (there may be more than one PT 11 this year!) and an update on our new goose-neck design. AEB 😉
Customers launched new boats in 2020 and I am happy to share photos and comments we have received.
Bicycle trailer!
"Russell & Ashlyn I wanted to let you know that we finally finished our PT11 dinghy. And although we haven’t sailed it yet in warm water, we have tested it out in CO. My wife has proclaimed rowing it is “oargasmic”. So I am very happy to have built it, and thankful to you for such an awesome design, kit and instructions. " JB
With an EP Carry 'outboard'
"Back in the late 60's, Tim Buckley put out a delightful album titled "Happy/Sad". That somewhat describes my state of mind these days: I'm very happy to have completed my PT-11 and beyond happy at how exquisitely it rows and sails. But I'm also sad at not having more shop time and the learning that came with its building. In all my years of construction and car restoration, I have never had a project which I enjoyed as much (except sanding the fillets). So I want to express my appreciation to the two of you for the design, support, and unbelievably complete construction manual." RS
"As you can see, my maiden voyage was a row with my wife- then I went out sailing on my own. I hadn't built the bailer bungee, so the bailer was in one of the compartments, tied in with a long line. Needless to say I capsized and couldn't get to it, but since I was pretty close to shore I discovered that the Spear sails pretty decently fully swamped. I tipped out the water on the beach and then had a great sail. Back on the beach a crowd was formed to see the nut sailing in November in Nantucket, but as soon as they saw the interior the questions started- what kind of wood is that? What kind of varnish did you use to get that awesome finish (er, well, none yet)." DS
fog and smoke in the San Juan Islands September 2020social distancing on the water in a PT 11 nesting dinghy and a PT Spear.Raptor deckA PT 11 touring the PacificA "sighting" in Rhode Island
As the signs indicate on our website, we are not able to take orders for kits (PT 11 and PT SPEAR) at this time. We had hoped to have a clear path figured out by now but we are still exploring what production might look like in 2021. By the end of the year, we really should know more.
We are collecting names and contact information of would-be PT 11 builders who want to be notified with updates on availability. So many of you have made it clear to us that discontinuing production of the PT 11 and the PT Spear would be, "tragic". We hear you! Solutions are being sought. Our most simplified explanation: "It's complicated".
For those of our builders who are looking for rigs or foils kits, we are building some new stock so that we may continue to serve the boats being built now. These will be available near the end of the year and early in 2021.
We also have books on our books page! There is a draft taking shape for a new book as well. (Spoiler alert; DIY hatches that really work) Plus we have swag and gift ideas on our mecantile page.
We missed everyone at the Wooden Boat Festival usually held at Point Hudson. We hope that you are all managing the current time we live in, in good health and good company.
You can also sign up for our newsletter for periodic updates.
Thank you for your understanding as we work through this transition in our business.
