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This year was the 39th annual Victoria Classic Boat Festival.  Among our friends who participated, Alex Spear was there with his beautiful boat, Vito Dumas and her tender, ‘Pato’, a PT SPEAR. 'Pato' is in fact the very first PT SPEAR.
In Alex’s words, ‘An esteemed panel of judges, including our local Carol Hasse, selected the PT 11/SPEAR as the “best open sailing vessel in the show”.'
This is a great honor. According to Alex,  ‘Pato’ was not independently entered in the show but it garnered so much interest and attention from the judges that they deemed it worthy of mention. Our humble gratitude goes out to the judges.

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Vito Dumas and tender, Pato, at the docks in Deer Harbor.

From Victoria, 'Vito Dumas', 'Sir Isaac', 'Sparkle' and other familiar and beautiful wooden boats converged at the Deer Harbor Wooden Boat Rendezvous.
Vito Dumas and ‘Pato’.

 

 

Below, Looking back on a rainy Deer Harbor.

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Looking back on Deer Harbor as we head back to Port Townsend.

Two weeks have already slipped by since the festival!  I am late to express my deeply felt gratitude to everyone who makes the festival happen, (http://nwmaritime.org/) , all who participate, and all who come to talk wooden boats and all things boaty. I realize that is a big blanket statement.

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Our booth with WEST SYSTEM EPOXY and 3 PT 11's on display!

For the past 5 years we have been very fortunate to share a tent with WEST SYSTEM EPOXY. This year Alan Gurski (CEO) and Bruce Niederer were on hand with their comprehensive and unbiased knowledge about epoxy; its uses, history, and the very chemistry of it all. If you want to understand epoxy, pros and cons, these are the guys to talk to.

There were more than a few of our customer boats in the festival. PT 11 nesting dinghies and PT Spear dinghies were to be seen on boats, behind boats, at the docks, and out in the bay.

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A PT 11 primly nested on Xanadu's deck/
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Pato; T/T Vito Dumas
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A completely painted PT 11 as t/t SKYE. PT SKIFF, MOJO in the back ground.

Two customer PT Skiffs graced the festival as well. Both boats are mind blowingly beautifully built and equally unique interpretations of the kit. High compliments are due to these two builders.

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The totally tweezed PT Skiff Mojo, built by Mark Ramsby of Portland OR.
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Mojo's Instrument panel
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Mojo parading during the Sunday Sail-by. Note the PT 11 sail in the back...
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Takin' Five PT SKIFF built by Steve Merrill.

Steve Merrill wipes the morning dew from his PT SKIFF, Takin' Five. Steve has been meticulous with his build, taking his time. He says he has been really enjoying it and getting creative especially with his 'expanding' driver seat and his self bailing installation.

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Unique expanding driver seat.

This seat hinges up, slides forward and ......

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Expanded seat. NO PLANS so DON"T ASK!

....expands into a romantic, "side-by-each" joy ride seat. My jaw dropped upon seeing this. But, alas, there are NO PLANS for it so you will have to charge up the brain-waves to create your own if you want one!

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The PT 11 out in the bay with an RC sailboat and a classic motor yacht.

Our friend, Cooper Parish, took time off  from his high-tech job at Scaled Composites in Mojave, to help us at our booth again this year. We love having him! We want him to keep returning every year so we make sure he gets plenty of sailing time in! In spite of being the smallest boat with the least sail area, Cooper sailed 'Rascal', a PT SPEAR, to a 3rd place finish (out of 6) among the Non-T-Bird class in the 26ft and under race.

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The PT 11 and CLC's Pocket Ship.

ptwatercrfat.comOf the events in the bay over the weekend, I totally missed getting photos of the Schooner Race. With a piping wind, it was one of the fastest schooner races on record at the festival. It was over before I could get to the beach with the camera. I hear it was eventful! John and Anne Bailey's recently re-launched , Sir Issac, snuffed the fleet.

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The Baileys on Sir Isaac in September 2016.
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The early morning rowing race at the Festival.
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Lots of varnish!
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layers of boats...

The PT Wooden Boat Festival is always a colorful affair.  It is an overwhelming weekend for us, exciting, exhausting, and encouraging. Customers often visit us at this time and we see our 'family' growing. We are seriously looking forward to holding a casual, PT11 sailing regatta of sorts and I will keep you posted on any development in that direction.  Thank you all again. AEB 😉

Fun overview Video off of You Tube..

Yesterday morning began with a tropical downpour that is just as out of character for the PNW as this summer's 90 degree temperatures. A few days ago the driveway was suddenly littered with crunchy yellow alder leaves. It has hit me hard that summer is coming to an end. For us, it also means that our local Wooden Boat Festival, (the 40th!) is upon us. We will be there! September 9, 10, & 11.

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Port Townsend watercraft in the WEST SYSTEM tent on the point near the Wee Nip.

We are pleased to announce that two, customer built PT Skiffs to be at the festival this year!

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Mojo at the Wooden Boat Festival

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Takin' Five to be at the 40th Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend

Immediately prior to festival, we will be in Deer Harbor (Wooden Boat Rendezvous), and just as promptly after festival, we will set sail northward, incommunicado, for 2 weeks.

We try to go sailing every year after festival and this year is special as it will be our first trip in our 'new' boat. We have yet to give it a name and perhaps this first real sail on her will help us decide on a name from our list, many suggested by friends.

If you are curious about our odd but inspired cruising boat, a G-32, the original promo videos can be seen HERE, and Russell's refit blog HERE.

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G32-First day out in Port Townsend. Photo; James Curtis

We will have the PT 11 with us as we travel up to Desolation Sound and back. During that 2 weeks we will aim to get new video, recharge our creative and productive energy banks and be on full power for our busier Biz season; Fall through Spring. Hence, we will be a little difficult to reach by phone and a little slow to respond to emails for the rest of September, but please write and leave messages anyway! We will get back to you and new production favors the early birds. There is also the quick deposit button if you are ready to secure your place in line for kits while we are away.

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Lined up for a light winds race around the anchorage..

While I am at it, I want to share a couple of pictures of some dinghy fun from this summer. It is exciting for me to realize that quite a few PT 11's and PT Spears have been completed locally and regionally (with many more on the way!). We had our first 'mini regatta' of friends at Watmough Bay this summer and look forward to having more PT 11 'meets' in the future.ptwatercraft.comI also have this vision of a Wooden Boat Festival here, perhaps the 41st next year, where-in a veritable fleet of PT 11's and Spears fills the foreground of the sail-by on Sunday afternoon, escorted of course, by several PT Skiffs.... my how our family is growing. Mark it on your calendars if you think you can make it. 😉 AEBptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.com

Mid August PT11 and PT Spear buddy sail in Port Townsend Bay. Here, stopped for lunch at the North West Maritime Center.

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One of my favorite festival sail-by's, up close and thick with sails...
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Early one festival morning...

Since we first started selling kits for the PT 11 we have been continually updating the kit, building process, and the boat to make it better.  It's in our nature to do this and it means the boats get stronger, lighter, easier to build, perform better, etc.

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click the photo for a detailed post about our rigs.

A good while back, through friends in the high tech world, we developed a connection with a company called Innovative Composite Engineering, a renown carbon tube company in Washington state. They now make our lightweight booms for the sailing rigs.

The 7 1/2' booms are incredibly lightweight. The tubes start at 20 ounces each. With the gooseneck, hardware, main sheet & vang tackle, they weigh 40 ounces.  No one is likely to get knocked out by one of these booms in a gybe and so far they have been strong enough (remember not to over-do the boom vang).

While the masts we sell have been extremely reliable, we knew they could be lighter. After a year of bugging I.C.E. to come up with a mast for us, we finally got a prototype.

The masts that we have been using are modified windsurfing masts. We have to modify them because they are stepped in a short socket and the loads where the mast comes out of the socket are quite significant and different than the loads applied to a windsurfer mast.
The new masts have extra layers of carbon at the lower end starting just above deck level and ending just above where the boom connects to the mast. These extra layers of laminate mean that we will have to do less work to the lower end to make them strong enough.

How light is the new mast? It’s light! The current two-piece masts weigh 104 ounces (2937 grams); already impressively light. The new mast weighs 69 ounces (1950 grams)!

We stress tested the prototype mast as shown on land (and on the water) using two 180 pound people on the rail and the mast was fine.
Having two people on the rail is strongly discouraged by us because of the twisting loads it puts on the boat, the very high loads at the mast step, and finally the mast.
In other words, what we are really after is a feather weight mast, not a mast that could break the boat.

The weight of the rig is directly related to ease of use. Our theory (and it seems well proven now) is that the easier the sailing rig is to use, the more it will be used. Our rig was already the lightest, easiest to use, and most power-per-pound dinghy sailing rig out there. Now it is significantly lighter.

We will pay quite a bit more for the custom masts, but because they will be less work to finish we will likely be able to keep the complete sailing rig cost the same.

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Ashlyn can't get much mast bend.
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Russell and James hike out with approx 360 Lbs.

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We did a load test on the ground, tying the mast to a building and getting two people hiking out on the rail. This was a little scary, but a very effective way to see if the mast was strong enough. (RB)

Ashlyn's footnote: Our ballast assistant in these photos is a local luthier. Here he is holding the 15' 1" mast up by the tip to see how it sounds as a Didjeridoo.

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What sound can it make?

See this silly video to hear....

I had him lower the tip for the video because, in the camera, the green house behind appeared to dominate. I regret this now since it would have looked fine. It was impressive how easy it was to keep it up in the air. (AEB.)

There is no doubt about it...We are R2AK junkies...

This year we did not have a sailboat in the water so we launched the Waterbug and followed some of the lead boats to Victoria.

I have put together a little video (HERE) of our outing, from the start of the Race in Port Townsend, crossing to Victoria and cheering many of the arriving boats. They trickled in all day. (and in the morning on Friday as we left) The very best way to follow the race is on the r2ak.com website.

Below is a slide show as well. Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting many good pictures with the equipment I had and in the rain. There are some very good photos being posted on Facebook and other places online. See Jan's Marine Photography on Smugmug.com

Port Townsend Watercraft will be closed for the first 2 weeks of July.

Other dates when we will be hard to reach will be June 22 thru 25th. We plan to be part of the welcoming committee in Victoria for the Race to Alaska participants. Hope to see you at the pre race Ruckus in Port Townsend (June 22) or in Victoria on the 23rd!

We hope everyone has something beautiful and fun within nature in their lives. Get out on the water, take a hike, lay down in a field of flowers, grow a garden...

Happy Summer everyone.

AEB 😉

 

As more PT Spears are built, the question of an ideal dolly has been asked. Recently, Russell and I joined friends in Port Townsend for a day of sailing. Our friends both own PT Spears; the one-piece version of the PT 11. Each are transported differently. ptwatercraft.com"Pato" arrived in this truck. This is actually an older photo on a day when we left from the launch ramp.

"Rascal" has its own little trailer.

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Rascal has a small trailer

Both PT SPEARs have dollies since their humans often launch by themselves. One uses a kayak cart purchased from our local Pygmy Kayaks. We found that the kick stand on this particular cart was a little tricky to get to and adjust with the dinghy being wider than a kayak.

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using a kayak cart
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tipping into the water..

ptwatercraft.com"Rascal's" human, being a plumber by trade, created his own sturdy dolly.

PVC pipe with a fixed "kick" stand. Sturdy and always in the right place so no need to access to raise or lower.

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Made from PVC plumbing- support stand visible here.
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eazy-peazy
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getting ready to splash

I also found while writing this post, that there are thousands of images online for kayak and dinghy dollies. It is important to note that the PT SPEAR, at 85 pounds, is easy to manage with a very simple dolly (like a kayak dolly) compared to most of the more complex dinghy dolly designs shown online. UPDATE: One customer has offered his design and details for a PVC dolly he uses for his PT SPEAR: PDF HERE

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getting ready to sail away...
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The perfect day for a dinghy sail...
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beach picnic

A brief clip using the PVC dolly:

AEB 😉

I feel very fortunate to have such an interesting and creative family. I am taking this opportunity to share links to my mother's current project. Now in her seventies, she has been building a horse drawn gypsy wagon with little or no resources. The magic of those resources appearing when most needed has been a recurring theme and creates inspiration for anyone wishing to launch a seemingly impossible project.

Toti Bleu Gypsy Wagon project. Blog - or - PDF book of blog posts Purchases of the book help fund this cool project. Suzanne is also a painter. In contrast to the whimsical watercolor illustration below, she also works with acrylics, capturing the beauty and essence of the French country side, as well as home and pet portraits. The sale of these lovely paintings that are way under priced in my opinion, also provides funding for her continued creativity. AEB 😉

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Toti Bleu, a project starts with a dream and an idea envisioned.

 

 

 

Now available, Project Cheers is a candid tale of single handed Trans-Atlantic racing in the 'early days'. (ON AMAZON - Or directly from PT Watercraft)ptwatercraft.com

Project Cheers is a narrative by the late Dick Newick, Tom Follett and Jim Morris about their American entry into the 1968 OSTAR (Observer Singlehanded Trans Atlantic Race)  Things were very different in 1968 in the world of yacht racing. Newick's unusual design, Cheers, a proa, shook things up a bit and forever changed certain ideas about ocean racing.

See our new website to compliment the book.

The book was only ever published once in England in 1969 and original copies are hard to find and precious. With multihulls in the spot light in the America's Cup and breaking records at an astonishing pace, we wanted to honor Cheers and the three men who created and raced the boat, for their vision and perseverance. The story is an inspiration to anyone attempting the "impossible".

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In St. Croix after the race..

Over the last 2 years, I have acquired permissions from the publishing house of the original book, and worked with the copyright heirs to obtain original photo scans and feedback on what direction we would take in re-publishing the book. (Nothing about the book had ever been saved digitally) I also nearly checked myself into a loony bin trying to work on MS WORD but was saved by MAC's Pages to format the book. Many pictures were not found in originals. It took a special scanner to get scans of them that did not produce Moire distortion when printed. We even had the photo curator at the Mariner's Museum in Newport News VA looking for original pictures. The museum hosts an extensive multihull collection.

While I would have liked this to be a glossy hard cover, my budget did not allow it. If there is interest, I can work on it. I did choose to print it with slightly larger print, and created a new cover to distinguish it from the first edition.

Profits from book and poster sales will benefit the Newick family.

Special thanks to everyone who participated in this republishing project. You know who you are. Besides the unusual grammar in the book, (we left all of that as per original text) any major mistakes can be corrected if you find them. I almost published the book with a super big boo boo (thanks to MS WORD auto format) but that was caught, (Thank you Katrina for your expert proof read!) just before going to press. Yay!

Finally, I have digital videos produced in 1968 by the BBC and CBS. (Not to mention reels of 16mm film!) Permission to upload these to the internet is still in question. These would be extremely fun to share and it seems like after more than 45 years, it should not be a problem to do so. I am working on it and if anyone has connections to those agencies, that could be helpful.

Please check out the book, poster, and website!

Enjoy a little clip that I think is from the 1960 (first) OSTAR race. The BBC has been very reserved about releasing such features to the public domain.

Thank you!! Ashlyn Brown 😉

info @ ptwatercraft . com

 

Does your rudder not stay down? ...Your back seat slip off? ...Your knobs tight and your leather pads  loose? Maybe we can help.

We have used our PT 11’s hard enough and long enough to have had some issues and it seems like it’s time for a maintenance discussion.
Also, there were manual updates that earlier builders didn’t get to see that we will show here.

We would like to hear from you as well. If you have had issues or failures with your boat, we want to know. Sometimes really bad things happen to boats, such a backing into one with a truck, (which we did) and sometimes the repairs are actually quite easy, so let us know if something like this happens to you.

Does your rudder kick up when you don’t want it to? If the rudder rotates back just a little bit then the pressure on the tiller increases dramatically. We’ll talk about how to fix it below.

How many of you have used the self-steering feature on the 11?  The hiking stick is of a length that if the tip is placed in the aft corner (as shown below), the boat can be steered by shifting weight side to side. This only works if there is pressure on the tiller (usually when going upwind or reaching), but one can go for hours in steady breeze without steering (even without shifting weight) or this feature can just be used when needing two hands for something. ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.comThe traveler line can be short to make it less in the way when not sailing. We drilled holes about 14” apart (7” either side of center), ran the traveler line through those holes and used stopper knots underneath.

The holes should be about 5/16” diameter and be sealed carefully with a couple of coats of epoxy. The traveler line can be 3/16” or 1/4” diameter.

 

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The hiking stick can still pass through if the rudder is fitted to the boat with the stick facing aft.

As we indicated, having the rudder not stay down all the way can mess up a good sail.
Usually this is caused by corrosion forming in the brass insert inside the plastic knob, reducing the force that can be applied with the knob.

Cleaning out the threads and applying a bit of grease should solve the problem, if not, try applying strips of tape to the rudder as shown.
We’re not sure which type of tape is best. Electrical tape smears, but sure does make the rudder stay down.
Plain masking tape or plastic tape may be better.

ptwatercraft.comIf you have one of our boats, you know that the hiking stick is attached with a piece of bungee.PTWATERCRAFT.COM
This works amazingly well, but the bungee should be replaced every couple of years, especially if you like to scull with your rudder.
We just found a source for Dyneema (Spectra) covered bungee and will now be providing this with our kits. If you would like a  short piece for your hiking stick, let us know.

ptwatercraft.comWhile we are on the subject of rudders, the rudder will only fit into the foils cases that we sell if the knob is on the port side as shown in the photos.

As described in the manual, the port side is good if you are right handed, but we never realized that putting the knob on the other side would restrict the fit in the case. If you are set up left handed, we have one left handed case in stock.

The rudder should be folded as shown to fit into the foils case.

The forward leather pads had to be replaced on our older boat. It seems that there is a lot of sideways force applied to these pads when the boat is nested and tied down tightly or if people sit on the boat when nested.
The adhesion of the contact cement to the boat can be improved by sanding the epoxy with coarser sandpaper (100 grit, or so), instead of just using the 3-M scrubbie. This is challenging, of course in such a tiny, taped-off area, but still easier than replacing one “in the field”. ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.com

The manual now shows glued-in hardwood dowel pins keeping the back seat from sliding forward.
If your seat slides off and you want to do something about it, we will e-mail that part of the manual to you and can send the pins as well. ptwatercraft.com

 

 

 

Not included in older manuals is trimming the width of the seat to allow wedging it between the bungee eye strap and the cleat that supports the seat.
This can be handy to keep the seat out of the way when nesting. It is not a very positive way to hold the seat, but it works with no extra parts or steps.
The width of the seat should be trimmed a little bit at a time with a table saw or block plane until it just wedges in place. ptwatercraft.comAlso missing from older manuals is the dagger board hold down strap. It is a loop of line that just fits around the aft turn dog base as shown.ptwatercraft.comNotice the tether on the trunk cap? it is glued into a hole drilled in the cap but tied to a custom washer that we now include in the kit. If you didn’t get one, let us know.

The connective hardware now uses 316 stainless C-clips that fit into notches in the pins to make the pins captive. Older boats have O-rings that serve the same purpose, but the O-rings & surrounding areas require cleaning and greasing to keep them from getting stiff and hard to use.
If you want to change O-rings and didn’t get extras with your kit, let us know and we will mail you some. Remember to use just a small amount of grease after cleaning all the parts well.
The pins can be removed with two 9/16” (14mm may fit) box wrenches as shown. The nuts, knobs, and washers are removed before pushing the pins out forward. ptwatercraft.comThese bailer photos have appeared on an earlier blog, but a good bailer is an absolute necessity and showing this again seems important.
This half-gallon laundry product bottle has had it’s bottom cut off and has a long tether attached to one of the eye straps placed above and below the bailer. We used carbon fiber glue-on eye straps,  for tying the bungee to, but small stainless eye straps would work fine using  3/8” long screws installed with epoxy.ptwatercraft.comptwatercraft.comPlacing the bailer in the location shown keeps it out of the way and also allows nesting the boat without removing the bailer, as long as the bailer is not too big.

If you capsize, sweeping the water out with your arm or sloshing out the water before getting back in gets much of the water out in a hurry.
Have you seen our capsize video?

Oars need collars (or stops) to keep the oarlocks from sliding off the oars. Hopefully your oars came with collars that work with the large Gaco oarlocks and are adjustable.
The collars should be adjusted to fit the boat, so that when rowing the oar handles almost touch each other on the centerline of the boat.
The collars should be adjusted to fit the forward oarlocks because they are closer together. Measuring  from the outboard edge of the collars to the inboard tip of the oar handle, 22 1/4” should work fine.ptwatercraft.comThe collars shown were made from contact cementing a long length of 3/4” webbing around (and around) the oar.
This is not the easiest thing to do and hopefully you have oars with collars that work well. The diameter of the collars shown is not large enough, as the collars can get wedged in the oarlock, restricting rotation.

If your PT 11 or Spear is damaged, even if it happened in an embarrassing way (such as backing a truck into it), we want to hear about it. Take careful photos and send them to us. sometimes big repairs can be quite easy to do.

One repair that would not be easy to fix is what could happen if your mast was not seated all the way down in the socket and you went sailing. The socket itself is not very strong, it’s the upper and lower mast partners that spread the considerable mast loads out into the boat.
If the mast wasn’t all the way down, the bottom end of the mast could break the socket and a very ugly hole in the deck would result.

pt11-seated-mastA mast hold-down is not very convenient, but could be just an eye strap mounted to the deck just aft of the socket. A bungee or lashing to the boom vang eye strap would hold the mast down. A wrap of colored tape on the mast to show when it is fully seated is another idea.
Remember to check that the mast is seated after a capsize.

Speaking of the boom vang, don’t over do it. The sail is most powerful if it twists a bit, and the boom could be broken if you used way too much tension, so go easy on the vang.

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Also, remember that dinghy sailing takes a lot of skill and should be approached cautiously. Going for your first sail on a gusty day is not a good idea, even if you sailed dinghies as a kid. Ease into it by starting in light and steady wind. build your skills in stages. If you are serious about it, do a capsize and self-rescue test, but do it with help nearby and don’t forget the bailer. PDF version of this guide HERE.ptwatercraft.com