Our tiller and hiking stick stock is made of Sapele. The tiller is tapered on 3 sides, shaped at both ends and drilled. The hiking stick has rounded ends, chamfered edges and drilled for attachment.
The builder finishes the tiller (on the right) by rounding the edges, hand sanding and oiling.The length of the hiking stick is just right to fit in the corner of the transom of the PT Eleven, for hands free steering when needed. It also folds and stows well. Tapering the tiller requires a router jig and so we offer this kit with most of the job done for you. We also offer untapered, 1" tiller stock, for the builder's who wish to shape their own. See the OPTIONS PAGE or the ORDER FORM on our website for prices.
FOILS (DAGGER BOARD AND RUDDER) KIT
Foils are like wings that operate underwater. As with sails, the shape of the foils directly affects performance. The PT 11 sails amazingly well against the wind, mostly due to good foils.
Dinghy foils are usually either very expensive or they are crude and inefficient. The PT 11 foils are neither, but like the boat itself there are multiple glass & epoxy steps to make them long lasting. One could just epoxy coat them and go sailing, but from our perspective that would be a waste of very high quality plywood and a lot of CNC machine time.
The kick-up rudder design is something we are proud of. The case is fun to build, works very well, and folds for stowing.
Building the case requires multiple epoxy steps and can be done while finishing the foils.
Our foils kit contents are shown in this picture, along with the optional tiller and hiking stick. The foils are a machined NACA .012 section.
A detail of the steering hardware package; Note the scribe marks on the rudder case walls for aligning the pintels.
The rudder and dagger-board are machined in halves from high grade Okoume plywood.
The halves are then glued together and vacuum bagged in our shop before shipping to the builder.This picture shows the finished foils.
The Rudder folds for easy storage. See the OPTIONS PAGE on our website for prices.
A good bumper for the PT 11 has been a priority since the beginning.
We have seen lots of different dinghy bumpers over the years, lots of them falling off or the rails falling off because of all the fasteners used to hold the bumper on.
We know that bumpers on dinghies are a challenge and we have tried different types; the favorite being 3/4” braided nylon rope glued into a notch on the outside of the gunwale. This bumper but was very hard and probably quite heavy when wet, but it lasted over 20 years, and never came un-glued.
The gunwale on the PT11 (as well as the rest of the boat) has to be sealed against moisture intrusion for longevity, so installing a bumper with fasteners is out of the question, unless you are willing to replace the gunwale periodically.
The most highly recommended dinghy bumper is a round closed cell foam covered with a fire hose like canvass material. This is usually attached with hundreds (I’m not kidding) of screws or ring nails, but could be glued on. See following photo. The challenges with this bumper are:
1.How to finish at the ends. It can’t just be cut as the foam would be exposed and the canvass will fray. Usually the foam is cut short and the canvass folded over and sewn, but in a nesting dinghy this would have to be done at all 4 bumper ends at the joint between the hull halves as well as at the transom and would likely need fasteners at these points.
2. it adds to the overall width of the boat.
3. it would be difficult to install straight and clean and may not look so hot.
4. it would be very heavy when wet. ... Oh, and it’s very expensive..(nearly $10/ft)
All the above is to explain how we arrived at the glue-on extruded rubber bumper.
We originally were planning a C-shaped section that would glue over the outer edge of the gunwale, but it would have to be glued on with something other than a contact adhesive and there would be challenges at the stem, transom, and in fitting around the oarlock riser blocks.
Thus we came to keeping the outer edges of the gunwale square and gluing a custom extruded bumper to the 1” wide flat present on the outer edge.
The bumper shown in the following photos was designed by us for the PT 11 and made by a manufacturer who makes rubber bumpers (chafe guards) for inflatables.
These bumpers are made from non-marking compounds and can be glued on with Hypalon glue, the same glue used to attach this type of rubber to inflatables.
Gluing this bumper on to a PT 11 is a bit of a process. The hypalon glue is two-part, stinky, and must be applied in a dry area. Being a contact adhesive, no clamping pressure is needed, but you only get one chance to put the bumper on straight.
Repairing sections of this bumper would be quite easy and could be done with a one-part contact adhesive.
The die used to make our bumper will be modified slightly and another prototype made before we order the huge quantity necessary for a minimum order.
An instruction booklet will be included with the bumper kits.
PHOTOS
I just revised my explanation on the previous post and that text is now in brown. I realized it was not very clear and had Russell help me out with a better description. Cheers!
I have just posted a youtube video of setting up and packing up the sailing rig for the PT Eleven nesting dinghy. This is something I was supposed to do before the Christmas holidays, and, well, I forgot. The foils you see are the foils that we provide as a kit and details are on ptwatercraft.com. The sail was our first design, though this video was taken before we trimmed up the foot just a little. We have a new design that has 2 short battens instead of the full one at the top. It is sleeved on and is really easy to manage. The shorter batten allows for a looser sleeve. Since we have had requests for a sail with a zipper luff for use with a halyard, we can now use the same design with a couple of hours additional labor to offer as an alternative. Having a halyard also means altering on the mast and adds complication over the sleeved luff. The total weight of this rig is only 13 LBS.
Prices for sails are still unknown. To have them made locally, they would cost $750-800. We are currently awaiting a quote from an offshore sail maker. ..Bummer to have to go offshore but the buyer can choose local artisan sails or production sails based on what they would rather pay. Luckily for some, principle can still outweigh cost, and we can offer that choice if someone wishes.
The mast and boom are also not yet priced. I hope we will have a price idea very soon. Being a little company as we are, it is a bit of a trick to get the carbon spars wholesale in small quantity.
To view the new video, click here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP3N_qTqPEo&list=UUVkWkVo0rpJ1I3xgJjmYUFQ&index=1&feature=plcp or visit our ptwatercraft channel. Cheers and Happy New Year! (changed the link for the video so I did not have to use Youtube music!)
On a recent cold day, we drove the PT Eleven over to Mystery Bay and sailed it up into the next bay about a mile to our boat, Jzerro. The seagulls had made a real mess on deck and we had some general maintenance to do. On our sail back to the launch ramp, we remembered to snap a couple of pictures of the "Self steering" on the PT Eleven nesting dinghy... The hiking stick is cut to the right length, and tucks into the transom corner. It gave us a chance to warm our hands in our pockets until we tacked.
First and foremost, what a pleasure to meet our first builders who came to pick their kits up at our shop. I am very excited about having them build the PT Eleven and look forward to their contributions to our builder sharespot.
The process of getting a stack of kits out the door has been a lesson in economics among other things. I will write more about that soon. In the meantime, I have put together a slide show of all the things that go into the basic PT Eleven nesting dinghy kit. We hope our current builders and those to come will agree, this is a great kit and a special little boat. That's all for now...:)
For those choosing to make their PT Eleven with the sailing option, we created a watertight cap for the dagger board trunk.
We chose G10 - Garolite in order to have a strong and stiff cap that would be as thin as possible (1/8th inch) so we could keep the profile very low and still be water tight. The dagger board trunk opening is close to the seat and the rower would actually sit over it with 2 people in the boat. Also, having a good lid is important if you would want to tow the boat.
The optional kit consists of a machined G10 Garolite cap with gasket groove & stiffener groove, gasket, mahogany stiffener, machined Garolite spacers, plastic washer, plastic tether washer, tether string, turn-dogs, and fasteners.
PT 11 Daggerboard Cap kit
Below you can see the cap installed.
Installed Dagger Board Cap
When sailing with the dagger board down, the turn-dogs also serve to keep the board down by resistance on the aft end and looping the string over the forward one.
Hello All, Before I update the blog with any news, I would like to invite everyone interested in the nesting dinghy series from PT Watercraft, to take a moment and fill out our questionnaire. Your input is our best guide for certain developmental decisions along the way. Many thanks! Click here to go to the questionnaire.
There are several options that we have been working on to be able to offer for this boat. I will begin posting them. Pricing will be announced on our website soon.
We are using Australian made Gaco gated oarlocks because they work beautifully and they are lightweight and also because of the reduced pin size.
The socket only requires a 5/8” hole. We plan to offer both the oarlocks, sockets and riser blocks kit as shown as an option.
LEATHER PADS
When nested, the forward half touches the after half in four places, three of which are edges against edges. Leather pads glued on with contact cement nicely protect these edges. The leather pads that we sell have a center-line mark to help position the pads.
The length of the hiking stick is just right to fit in the corner of the transom of the PT Eleven, for hands free steering when needed. It also folds and stows well. 
Tapering the tiller requires a router jig and so we offer this kit with most of the job done for you. We also offer untapered, 1" tiller stock, for the builder's who wish to shape their own. See the OPTIONS PAGE or the ORDER FORM on our website for prices.
