UPDATE: Port Townsend Watercraft no longer produces these hatches. We still have the instructions online HERE and for savvy DIY folks, it may be enough information to create your own. Additional tips: The lid thickness must match the cut-out thickness, the gasket notch depth is cut to .185", and the recommended gasket can be found on Mcmaster Carr:: Super soft latex tubing # 5234K96. The information below from this old post is left available in case there are any helpful details to glean for making your own.

Port Townsend Watercraft has expanded it’s line of water tight hatch kits. We have recently developed watertight hatch kits for the SCAMP from Small Craft Advisor Magazine. (see discussion at the SCA link) These are similar to the very successful water tight hatch that we use in our PT Eleven nesting dinghy. These hatches can be used on any kit boat where the dimensions allow.

Our hatches differ from their plastic counter parts in that they are actually water tight.  This is achieved with the combination of a very rigid lid and coaming, the right gasket, and really slick machined Delrin turn-dogs. They are a bit of work to install and finish but the hatch kits come with a very complete photo manual and the result is an easy to use, flush, and good-looking hatch.

The kits (Used to) include the machined high quality Okoume plywood parts, (coaming, stiffener and lid), gasket, machined delrin turn-dogs, fasteners, kevlar tether, and instructions.
ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.comPTWATERCRAFT.COMptwatercraft.com

(Updated)

We took the sailing option very seriously for the PT 11 and it's a good thing we did. Most of the PT 11 builders have chosen our rig and foils.  The sailing performance of this boat is not only measured in sailing ability, but also in simplicity and ease of setting up the rig. Setting up and breaking down a sailing rig is always a bit of work, especially if you are doing it alongside a cruising boat. It's true that the easier the set-up, the more one goes sailing. Our rig is as light and easy to use as possible.         The carbon fiber mast is two-piece and sleeves together. The boom carries all of the hardware and running rigging. The gooseneck fitting is made by us. It has no moving parts, installs instantly, and is held to the mast by the sail and vang. High quality snap and "S" hooks make set-up significantly faster.

The sail is small (54 sq. ft.), but it's a powerhouse, thanks to a good sail designer, Sandy Goodall. The sails are made from DK 160 Challenge.(TM)

The PT 11 sailing rig is sold complete and ready to use.

The rig comes in its own bag shipped in an 8ft long x 7" x 7" box.

ptwatercraft.comIn the 94" bag: carbon mast, boom, running rigging, and 54 ft sq sail.    All this weighs barely 11 pounds! Assembled, the mast is 15' 1" tall with a 10" bury. (socket on the PT 11 and Spear dinghies.

ptwatercraft.comOut haul and main sheet tackle.

Line colors change with various batches.IMG_2416

ptwatercraft.comBelow: Gooseneck and vang  The red part is the sleeve on the sail.

ptwatercraft.comThe gooseneck left was our original design that turned out to be quite labor intensive.

We have since developed a machined Delrin gooseneck, (below) glued into the boom rather than riveted and  that has been working great. NewGooseFinDSC_0596

ptwatercraft.comEarlier model above with an S-hook, currently below with a snap-hook.

DSC_0492

Having fun!

ptwatercraft.comUPDATED INFORMATION:

Complete rig: includes a 2-part carbon mast + boom, all associated hardware and running rigging, sail and bag. It is extremely lightweight (barely 11 Lbs) and quick to set up.

Our Spar tubes are custom made in the USA + Harken, Ronstan, & Allen Hardware)

The masts and booms are made in state by ICE, a maker of the highest quality carbon fiber tubes on the planet. The two-part mast and boom (almost 23 lineal feet of tapered custom carbon tubes) weigh just 6.7 lbs and that includes all the hardware and running rigging on the boom (5 blocks, 2 snap hooks, 1 s-hook, 7 eye straps, 1 cleat, 37 feet of running rigging, and a custom gooseneck fitting. 

Pricing on the CLC website

We have minimal notes for builders to create their own sailing rig as an alternative, starting with 2 standard diameter 460 windsurfer masts.

About the PT Eleven sail :

A foil shaped, luff sleeved sail with 2 short battens, app 54ftsq.  (DK160) Challenge(TM) sail cloth is made in the USA.  This type of sail does not reef and we have not missed such a feature. It is a single, relatively small sail well shaped for a variety of conditions. There is no jib or spinnaker.

PT 11 Sails are designed by Sandy Goodall and prototyped by Sean Rankins of NW Sails & Canvas. Production modifications by Bob Pattison of Sails International. *Production by Neil Pryde/Sails International.

Read Sandy’s  Review of Sailing the PT 11.

Notes on the design; Look for ‘REEFING THE SAIL?

In dinghy sailing events placed in the same class as Lasers, we found the PT 11 to be competitive upwind as the foils and sail allow for pointing very high. However; The PT 11 is not designed as a racing dinghy, but it is a very fun boat to sail. AEB

SOLD 2012

We recently had a rather large run of foils (dagger-boards and rudders) machined that are not quite up to our standards.
They are very slightly less accurate than our our usual nearly perfect foils and on the dagger-boards there is a small depression on the starboard side only. ptwatercraft.comThis low area is visible in the photo and would look a bit odd on a bright finished foil.

ptwatercraft.com
shows the miscut on one side. This will get filled with epoxy before shipping out.

We painted the upper end of a dagger-board from this batch to hide the filled low spot and it looks really sharp (see photo). ptwatercraft.com
SOLD

Click for more detailed information on our foils kits. Also, see our options page for the PT 11.

All of our kit parts, including the foils are cut from the highest quality Lloyds okoume marine plywood.  Note that 12mm plywood is now only available in the 7 ply instead of 9ply as shown in earlier foils kits. This means the foils now have 14 plies instead of 18.

Call or email for more information or to order foils. Cheers, :) PTW

A new video has been posted showing the PT Eleven nesting dinghy being towed at 9 and 15 knots. Check it out here: Towing the PT 11

Also, as a heads up, we have yet to update our PT 11 water tight hatch blog. It just got lost in the stack of "to-do's". Since our original hatch blog last year, we offer an improved hatch kit with our PT 11 kits. This has recently come to my attention because this outdated blog has been referenced on some forums and I thought, hmmm, we need to fix this... Thus, a new post will soon be up. Coming soon, we will have 2 additional sizes of water tight hatch kits designed with the SCAMP in mind. Thanks to Howard Rice and Josh Colvin of Small Craft Adviser magazine, our hatch design has gained the interest of SCAMP builder's. A detailed post about this will also follow soon. PTW :)

Wow... it is the weekend after the event and I am still trying to catch my breath. It was so much fun and so great to meet so many wonderful boat enthusiasts yet again. Thank you to everyone for making the Boat Festival in Port Townsend such a great event. It was a special year for us for several reasons. It was an extra treat to have Meade Gougeon and Jim Brown attend and give presentations about the advantages of wood and epoxy boat building along with some sea stories. They have more than a few of those! For the occasion, Russell made an exception and brought his Proa, Jzerro, to town and wowed onlookers with the speed and beauty of this unusual boat. I hear from Jim that as the boat accelerated, Meade kept exclaiming, "Gee!"  The PT Skiff, while mostly on display at the dock,  served as a transport around the bay to and from Jzerro; a welcome break for me to get out on the water as chauffeur. Thank you to the skiff's new owner for letting us use the boat over the weekend.

Once again, it was wonderful and a privilege being at the festival along side of West System Epoxy. They had answers to every imaginable epoxy related question. Many thanks to Meade Gougeon, Jeff Wright and Don Gutzmeyer (sp?) for a great weekend.

The new prototype of the one piece PT 11 was rarely tethered to her mother-ship, Vito Dumas. Instead, lots of folks got to row or sail it around the bay. Special thanks to Alex for making that possible. Russell will be finalizing the design and manual this fall and winter and we will post updates on kit availability.

Our show neighbors and good friends from Chesapeake Lightcraft completed our weekend with a good laugh. As they were packing up their boats, John and crew walked over in all business manner and picked up our PT 11 from her display stand and marched her over to their truck. Ha ha.. but.. hey!...wait a minute! That is my boat! A feigned struggle of wills ensued, with the boat zig zagging in their grip and me between them and the tail gate of their truck, until I got them marching right back to my stand to put the PT 11 back in my court. Great comic relief and a fine compliment from such a respected kit boat company. Thanks John, my cheeks still ache from laughing.

To my dear sister, Dana...we would not have survived without you!ptwatercraft.com

I will share some pictures (of which I did not get nearly enough!)from the weekend here and look forward to seeing new and familiar faces at the festival next year! I actually did not get to go around and take a lot of pictures.  I have noted which were taken by others with my camera.

ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.com

ptwatercraft.com
"the Hood"

ptwatercraft.com

ptwatercraft.com
checking out the "Spear", a one piece PT Eleven
ptwatercraft.com
PT 11 out sailing
ptwatercraft.com
the PT 11 one piece dinghy out on the water during the PT wooden boat festival
ptwatercraft.com
Jzerro ripping through the fleet. Photo by Curtis Hinnman.

ptwatercraft.com

ptwatercraft.com
'Holding up the fort'; Our friends at West System Epoxy!
ptwatercraft.com
swinging at the festival...
ptwatercraft.com
Port Townsend Textures
ptwatercraft.com
T'Birds
ptwatercraft.com
...probably the most photographed of all..the beer tender..

We have developed a case to carry and protect your stored dagger board and rudder for the PT11. We are using a fabric called "Evolution"(tm) or "Block-out", designed for classic car covers. It is water repellant and breathable so you can put your foils in the case wet. These bags are not padded but the fabric is slightly cushioned and chafe resistant, and  the case is double stitched with heavy, UV protected Polyester thread. Our design is streamlined and fitted to the foils shape. Separate pockets house the dagger board and the rudder while a single flap closes both openings, secured with 2" x 9" Velcro.  Custom made in the USA. Retail price of $90

ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.com

http://www.ptwatercraft.comShown above with the PT Swift applique.

Close up detail of the fabric texture showing both sides. ptwatercraft.comSee the options offered for the PT Eleven nesting dinghy.

The PT 11 is a beautiful piece of design work. The finished boat is lovely to look at, and a pleasure to be in, whether rowing or sailing. Even at rest, its simple yet elegant form seems to suggest smooth, efficient speed.

The daggerboard and kick-up rudder are pure eye-candy. Beautifully shaped and finished, they far exceed the foils usually seen with kit boats. They are not only well made and good looking, but their plan and cross section shapes are extremely efficient….which helps the boat sail to windward like a true thoroughbred.

Rigging the PT 11 could hardly be simpler. The two-part free standing carbon mast slides into a sleeve on the luff of the sail (like the famous Laser dinghy). Then just stand the rig up in its mast step tube. The boom has a neat “fork” that rests against the aft face of the mast, rather than the usual goose-neck fitting. Just moderate vang tension is enough to hold the boom against the mast, tension the luff, and control the leech twist.

Because the mast is a flexible, free-standing wand, it bends progressively under increasing pressure, gradually flattening the sail, while allowing the leech to open and de-power in a gust. The result is that once sheeted in on a beat, the sail needs little trimming. In fact if you lodge the tiller extension against the leeward corner of the gunwale / transom, the boat is happy to self steer to windward! This boat sails unusually well to weather, pointing high and making very little leeway.

The PT 11 is a very slippery shape, and it responds well to the lightest breezes, even with a “full grown” helmsman (230 lbs). The boat is surprisingly quick to plane, and the transition from displacement to planing mode is almost imperceptible.

Many rowing dinghies are a real compromise when it comes to sailing, but this one performs admirably, even as a dedicated sailing dinghy. I can imagine having a grand time, racing against my friends in a small fleet of PT 11’s. A real pleasure to sail!ptwatercraft.comSandy Goodall Sail Design Consulting