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. "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.
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.
using a kayak carttipping into the water..
"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.
Made from PVC plumbing- support stand visible here.eazy-peazygetting 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
getting ready to sail away...The perfect day for a dinghy sail...beach picnic
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 đ
Toti Bleu, a project starts with a dream and an idea envisioned.
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 11âs hard enough and long enough to have had some issues and it seems like itâs time for a maintenance discussion.
Also, there were manual updates that earlier builders didnât 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 donât want it to? If the rudder rotates back just a little bit then the pressure on the tiller increases dramatically. Weâll 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. The traveler line can be short to make it less in the way when not sailing. We drilled holes about 14â apart (7â either side of center), ran the traveler line through those holes and used stopper knots underneath.
The holes should be about 5/16â diameter and be sealed carefully with a couple of coats of epoxy. The traveler line can be 3/16â or 1/4â diameter.
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.
Weâre 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.
If you have one of our boats, you know that the hiking stick is attached with a piece of bungee.
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.
While 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 âin the fieldâ.
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.Â
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. Also 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.Notice 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 didnât 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 didnât 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 9/16â (14mm may fit) box wrenches as shown. The nuts, knobs, and washers are removed before pushing the pins out forward. These 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 itâs 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 3/8â long screws installed with epoxy.Placing 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 1/4â should work fine.The collars shown were made from contact cementing a long length of 3/4â 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, itâs the upper and lower mast partners that spread the considerable mast loads out into the boat.
If the mast wasnât all the way down, the bottom end of the mast could break the socket and a very ugly hole in the deck would result.
A 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, donât 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.
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 donât forget the bailer. PDF version of this guide HERE.
What is different about kits from PT Watercraft and why do they cost what they do?
To start, we produce the kind of kit that we would like ourselves, something more advanced. Advanced from the perspective of functionality, performance, longevity, and good strength to weight ratio, etc.
This approach seems to be working as our nesting dinghy kits (our most complex kit) has been selling very well.
Most kit companies avoid hand-made parts when possible, and for good reason; they take a lot of time to produce and they increase the cost of the kits.
How can we afford to have so many custom and hand-made parts in our kits? Because we have no real employees and a very low overhead. This can be limiting in some ways, but it does afford us the ability to to really focus on each and every part that goes into a kit.
Development and manufacturing has been a lifelong interest. Figuring out new, more efficient ways to produce parts is fun for us, so we thought we would share a bit of it with you.
Double checking the packing lists
Even though there are 5 different thicknesses of plywood in a PT 11 kit, the 6mm plywood parts (shown below) form most of the hull, foredeck, transom, etc.
Thereâs no handwork here; all these parts are cut by a very good CNC operator (Turn Point Design). There is however, much effort that goes into buying and grading this plywood. We reject unattractive or warped sheets and pick the best looking sheets for cutting the foredecks, buoyancy tanks, etc.
We are lucky to have Edensaw Woods, a very large plywood importer right here in Port Townsend, yet finding good (and good-looking) plywood has become both more expensive and more difficult. When we find what we want, be buy a lot of it.
The 6mm parts are the first parts to go in the crate. We use a 5 page âmapâ to show how the layers nest to take up the least space and yet lay flat in the crate.The main connective bulkheads (12 mm plywood) are also CNC cut with scribed marks for locating doublers, gussets, and trunk. The forward of these two bulkheads has a notch for the hull gasket, which unfortunately needs to be on the opposite face as the scribed marks, so CNC cutting the notch is not easily done. We very carefully cut the notches with a jig and router as shown below.
hand routering the gasket notch in the PT 11 main bulkhead.
The large gussets, visible in most PT 11 photos, are what really tie the front and back halves of the boat together (and help us sleep at night).
There are 8 of them per boat (complete set in foreground of photo below) and they are made from 25mm (1â) thick plywood. Being so large (and thick) makes them both very effective at taking the loads and also relatively easy to install in the building process.
For the first couple of years of selling kits for this boat, we asked the builder do the handwork on these parts which, without the right tools could be difficult and potentially dangerous.
The upper gussets (right hand cluster in the foreground below) are heavily beveled on the outboard edges to match the angle of the hull. We do this with a large 1 hp tilt-table disk sander hooked up to a large vacuum.
The appropriate edges are then rounded on the router table, which is far safer and easier than the builder rounding them with a router by hand.
There are only 3 different gusset profiles when we start the handwork part, but when we finish beveling and rounding edges, there are 6 different parts. In other words, itâs critical to bevel and round the right edges and pack the right parts.
Ashlyn is shown here at the router table removing the tabs left from the CNC machining.
The machined gunwales (also made from 25mm plywood) donât require handwork, (besides checking the joints and packing), but they do a very effective job.
Not only are these gunwales easy to join and install, but they lock the upper edge of the hull into its designed shape without having to laminate the gunwales and without needing much framing to support the upper hull panels (see photo).
The outer faces of the gunwales are âcappedâ with unidirectional glass to make them very strong for their weight before gluing on the bumper.
Making gunwales from plywood was not an inexpensive route for us to follow (we are the only kit company currently doing this) but the result has been worth it.
PT11 gunwale kits
The lumber kit unfortunately ends up hidden under the foredeck (mostly) in a finished boat. Unfortunate, because we use high grade Sitka spruce that no one but the builder gets to see.
We use Sitka spruce to keep the parts light and strong.
The foredeck stringers (the biggest of these parts) let us keep the foredeck thin and light, yet stiff and strong enough to be walked on.Joining the foredeck to the hull are machined 15mm plywood glue cleats. These are machined to the curve of the foredeck edge to make them easy to install and pre-beveled to fit the angle between hull & deck.
Our trunk logs (the spacers that separate the daggerboard trunk walls) are cut on the table saw from pre-fiberglassed stock.
Why do we pre-glass?, because if the builder were to glass these pieces it would be difficult to keep the edges square when trimming the glass. Square trunk logs help make square trunks, which helps the dagger board fit into the trunk, etc.Making our own mast sockets is necessary because the masts that we use are an odd outside diameter and the mast must fit into the socket without a lot of wiggle room.
We found a steel tube the right diameter (after much searching) and use this as a mandril to make tubes long enough for 5 sockets to be cut from.
How we actually make these tubes is more than we want to show, but how we get the tubes off the mandril is interesting: The mandril is covered with adhesive-backed Teflon film (small photo), so after the tube has been laminated and post-cured (with heat), the tube is pulled off the mandril with a come-along.
We used to do this between the shop truck and a tree (it takes a lot of pulling), but now have found that we can put clamps over the ends of a 2â thick plank and pull from those as shown.This photo shows the mast step assembly placed on the mast step bulkhead. These parts are easy to install (if one follows the manual) and easy to install accurately as there are scribed centerline marks on all the parts.
All bulkheads have tongues (visible in this photo) that fit into slots machined into the hull panels.How we make the alignment clips is also more than we want to show, but they are really a lot of work to make. We almost cry when itâs time to make more of them.
They are molded from many layers of carbon in a long blank and then cut into the shapes shown.The alignment clips are part of the joining system. They automatically (when pushing down on the forward hull-half), align and hold the two halves so that the threaded pins can find their sockets.
The alignment clips seat over small strips of filled epoxy (photo on left) that are glued to the bulkhead edges and then shaped level with the foredeck, where the clips are attached.
 At the heart of the PT 11 is the connective hardware. This hardware has evolved considerably since our early prototypes.
Designed by Russell Brown and Paul Zeuche, this hardware (4 sets per boat) is very strong, easy to use, and maintenance-free.
Paul Zeuche machines these parts from 316 stainless steel and does so with a lot of care and pride.
We assemble these parts with the knobs and the custom beveled cap nuts and check tolerances, etc.
The knobs (star knobs, we call them), are machined from G-10 fiberglass plate.
This is a very dense and strong (similar to aluminum) epoxy and glass material that machines well and doesnât corrode.
Unfortunately, G-10 is no longer available in black, but since the builder has to sand and coat the knobs anyway, they can just as easily be painted instead, even with enamel paint in a rattle can.
These are cut by the CNC machine, but we chamfer the edges on the router table and tap (thread) the holes.
Also made from G-10 plate are the wear strips that are used at the upper and lower ends of the dagger board trunk.
Our method is a very effective and easy way to seal and toughen these damage-prone edges.
The towing hole is a piece of G-10 tubing that is bonded into the cutwater area of the stem.
A towing point should be strong enough to yank hard on the boat when it is full of water and this one is.
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The PT 11 is covered in fiberglass cloth on every exterior surface (including the inside).
Glassing inside and out gives the boat a very long potential life span and itâs not hard to do.
The method we use is to pre- fiberglass and sand all inside surfaces with light cloth before assembling the hull, while the parts are laid flat on the table.
The outside of the hull is glassed with heavier cloth after assembly, and the bottom of the hull is glassed with even heavier cloth yet.
This takes a lot of cloth and three weights of cloth...And thereâs peel ply for the chine taping.
The fiberglass types and weights used on the PT 11 are carefully chosen to make the boat as light and strong as possible.
Unidirectional fiberglass (additional to the 3 types mentioned) is used on the outside faces of the gunwales to dramatically stiffen and strengthen them.
We carefully roll the cloth onto tubes on our 24â long cutting table.
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The parts you have seen in this article are base kit parts. Several parts included in the kit are not shown here. See the kit contents photos.
In 2016, some of the parts that have previously been options will be included in the base kit.
The PT 11 (and Spear) foils are not the usual dinghy fare. Good foils are just as important as good sails if you want performance, especially upwind. Again, we went for something that we would want ourselves.
Sailing adventures on our multiple PT 11 prototypes while cruising have provided some of the highlights of our trips. Having a dinghy that really performs, especially upwind, makes it possible to explore farther and it is definitely more fun.
The accurate foil shape (NACA 0012 section) and high aspect ratio are what makes these CNC machined foils perform so well.
Machining them from plywood (instead of making them from fiberglass in a mold) is more affordable and thereâs not a huge amount of labor involved in going from the kit to finished foils. The result can be really beautiful and tough foils that are lighter than most molded dinghy foils.
Unfortunately, the Okoume plywood industry has recently moved to using thicker veneers in thick plywood panels, so instead of the foils being made from 9 ply (12mm), they are now made from 7 plies.
The foils are machined in halves (photo below) and bonded together with vacuum pressure so there are actually 14 plies in a foil that is almost 1â thick.
Machining foils from plywood is the ultimate way to find defects hidden within the layers. All of our foils have some visual defects or slight waves in the veneer lines, but sometimes a whole batch of foils will become âpaint gradeâ foils sold at a discount.
From one 4âx8â sheet of plywood we can machine 12 foil halves, which sounds like a lot, but that makes only 6 foils, enough for 3 boats.
Vacuum bagging the halves together is a laborious process, mostly because the parts have to be held straight when being joined, but we have a new method to try, which could be better.
The machined surfaces of the foils are very accurate and fair, but we sand out the tooling marks after the halves are bonded together. We sand just until the tooling marks start to disappear, and then sand the edges and round the upper (rectangular) parts on the router table.The design of the foils parts is something we are proud of. The kick-up rudder is simple yet can be locked down or up and can be folded back to fit in a foils case.
The gudgeons are modified (by us) to be the right width for our rudder case and there are scribed marks machined into the case walls to show gudgeon location.
The tiller and hiking stick are Sapele mahogany. The tiller is tapered on three sides in a router jig and the holes drilled in drill press jigs, leaving just the edge rounding to the builder.
The rigs are an entirely different kind of work for us. The wonderfully lightweight two-piece carbon masts come to us through the windsurfing industry, but we do a large modification to the bottom ends of them to make them strong enough to be socket-stepped.
The boom tubes are made for us by ICEÂ and they are so lightweight that adding the Harken and Ronstan hardware to the booms just about doubles their weight.
We build the rigs complete. They are ready to use when they leave the shop.
Having grown up dinghy sailing (from a cruising boat mostly), I knew that for our rigs to be successful, they had to extremely easy to use. Carbon fiber spars make it possible for us to build a 13 pound rig. Thatâs 13 pounds for the mast, boom, sail, running rigging, and the bag that it all fits into.
Set-up and break-down of this rig is fast and easy enough to make a âquick sailâ something that one actually does, instead of just thinking about doing it.Like everything else we do, we try to build a lot of rigs at one time. Shown here are 10 rigs worth of spars. The upper mast sections (far right of photo) are the only part that isnât much work.
The fatter sections are the lower ends of the masts, where all the hidden reinforcement happens.
On the left are 10 booms just started, with only the gooseneck fittings attached.This kind of work can be stressful, as mistakes would be very costly (the tubes are expensive), but also quite rewarding. The process is refined with every batch we do.The gooseneck fittings are built this way for two reasons: # 1 is that assembly is so fast. Just plug the boom onto the mast and snap on the tack hook instead of fiddling around with fitting a gooseneck pin into the end of the boom. # 2 is that no hardware is bolted to the mast, which would weaken it. This gooseneck is strong and is very nice to the mast.
The gooseneck fittings are made of molded (vacuum bagged) carbon fiber in long blanks and then cut into strips on a table saw. All very easy until the corner and edge rounding, coating, and drilling, and of course mounting to the booms.All the hardware for sailing and all the running rigging is carried on the boom.
Sheet, vang, and outhaul all live on the boom.
The quick disconnect vang set-up is shown here.The dagger board trunk caps are machined for us from 3/16â G-10 plate. They are machined with a gasket notch and now are machined with a recess for the mahogany stiffener. The recess makes it easy to bond the stiffener in place and also makes the cap significantly lighter.
A good trunk cap is a luxury if you like dry pants and a necessity for towing, and is now included in the base kit.
We sand and chamfer the edges of the caps and riser blocks and we make the stiffeners.The daggerboard trunk cap kit uses many of the same parts that the hatch kit uses, except that the cap uses riser blocks to lift the turn dogs to the level of the cap and custom washers to lift them just a bit more. One of the two washers provides a tie point for the lanyard (see both photos below).The hatch kit will be included in the base kit in 2016 because everyone purchasing the PT 11 has opted for the hatch kit.
The hatch opening and turn dog fastener locations are now machined into the foredeck and we now pre-round the edges of the coaming opening and lid stiffener.The hatch is flush, which is necessary because it is sat on when rowing with two. It is also airtight (the gasket sits inside a machined gasket notch). How airtight? Removing the lid takes a good pull if the boat has cooled as the vacuum pulls the lid down tight.We machine a lot of small mahogany parts such as foot braces, back seat cleats, stiffeners, and oarlock riser blocks. We have gotten pretty good at producing parts that are basically ready to install and finish.Foot braces are almost as important as oars when it comes to rowing.
We have experimented with many different types of foot braces and keep coming back to these glued-on Sapele mahogany braces. They are easy to install (with the included template), lightweight, hard enough to hold a finish well, and made from a species that would hold up well even without finish.
The back seat cleats are also shown in photos above and below.
The photo below shows three of the finishing steps used on all the cleats, stiffeners, and foot braces.
The piece on the right has had its ends cut to length and angle on the table saw. The piece in the middle has had its sawn faces sanded and sharp corners rounded on a table sander. The finished piece has had its edges rounded with a sharp round over bit in a router table.
All the stock for these parts is run through a sharp thickness planer after cutting to make all four edges smooth before cutting the individual parts.
To say that we make a lot of these parts is not an exaggeration.
Shown are foot braces and back seat cleats for only five boats.
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The oarlock riser blocks are not strictly necessary, but they give the sockets more support and give arguably better ergonomics, especially if you like to sit on a cushion when rowing.
A block of wood with holes drilled in it would work fine, but we machine them to the shape of the socket.
Making these parts is laborious and makes sense only if a lot of them are made at one time.
CNC machining them is possible, but would be expensive (5 axis machine) and the parts would still need finish sanding.
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The drill press is used with a fence to drill both large and small holes on center.
The sockets are installed with the screw size that will be used for final installation and marked around as shown.
After cutting the strips into individual parts, the shapes are roughly machined very quickly on a large tilt-table sander. They are then finished on a smaller tilt-table sander with fine sandpaper as shown below.The back seat (also visible in photos above) is made from very tight grain Red Cedar which seems to be an ideal material for a removable seat. Itâs very light, looks good, and doesnât ding up the inside of the boat. We pick through piles of expensive wood to find the nicest pieces, plane them to thickness, and cut them with a template.The construction manual is what ties all the parts together.
The PT 11 manual has been the largest single effort of this boat. It seems to be paying off as we get very few âtechâ calls or calls from builders in trouble.
The only embarrassing thing about the manual is that it is so thick (306 pages) and some find that intimidating.
The reason itâs so thick is that we try to show more with photos than with words and there are more than 700 photos in this book, showing every step of the building process.
The PT 11 is not a simple boat and while the manual needs to be carefully followed, total amateurs have built very nice 11âs and had a good time doing so.
The manual has undergone multiple re-writings (even very recently), which usually involves building a new boat to use as a photo prop for design changes or changes in process or sequence. The result of all this is that the boat is now both better and easier to build.
What do we do with our âspare timeâ? We make other stuff, such as turn dogs and carbon eye straps. We make these parts for our own boats, but we also make them for our friends at Chesapeake Light Craft, who have managed to sell many thousands of these parts for use on their own kits.
The turn dogs are machined from sheets of Delrin(TM) and we bevel the edges on the router table, which sounds dangerous, but really itâs just mind-numbing (and finger cramping). Small fingers like Ashlynâs are pretty much a requirement for this job.
..each piece has the upper & lower edges chamfered on a router table...
The carbon eye straps are popular because they look cool, but also because they can be glued to a surface (such as a kayak deck) without fasteners. We make long blanks in a two-part mold (long enough to make 80 eye straps). After trimming and finishing the blank, the eye straps are cut, beveled, and finished by hand. Both the turn dogs and eye straps were just an idea (floated with crude samples) to our friend John Harris at CLC about 5 years ago. These parts now are a small industry and can be seen on boats far and wide (including our boats).Whatâs next for us?
Kit sales in 2015 challenged the production capacity of our shop so the thought of someone else taking over PT Watercraft has crossed our minds more than once. This would allow us to develop other boats and write about building techniques.
For the present, however, we are happy to keep producing the best kits we possibly can.
Every now and then a friend has a boat for sale that they would like us to post on our website. We do this selectively for free. Paul Zeusche, who makes the connective hardware for our kits, has recently finished refurbishing a molded fiberglass nesting dinghy (14 feet) that he and his wife used extensively on their cruising boat. It looks like he did an amazing and thorough job on this boat.
This boat is much longer than our nesting dinghy. The advantage of length is higher rowing speeds. This boat can be rowed by 2 people at once, using either 4 oars or just two.
Because the boat is relatively narrow and a very slippery hull shape, I would describe it as having "long legs."
Jake and Josh have done it again with R2AK promo videos that I love to watch over and over again. During festival, I had to watch the 'Throw-down' video for a good laugh before beginning my Wooden Boat Festival day. Immediately following this one is the 'Will You Be Ready" video, once again featuring the talented, Zack Carver's video creativity. Check them out, laugh and share. I love this town. I cannot think of any other place that could have come up with an idea like this, keep the vibe in all its serious reality/whacky humor, and ...a straight face. Watch R2AK Throw Down and Are you ready?
We hope you have made your plans to come! PT Watercraft will be there together with WEST SYSTEM EPOXY. Bring your epoxy questions for their very knowledgeable team to answer. These guys are amazing.
Visitors study the PT 11 nesting dinghy
We will have a PT 11 on display and one available for test rows. There should be several at the festival with their mother ships and a recently (almost) completed PT Skiff ("Mojo") will be at the docks this year. This boat promises to be a beauty judging by the few photos we have seen.
The PT Skiff that will be shown at the 39th Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend, WA 2015
Due to the festival, preparing for it and attending, we are not going to in office much. If you do have questions, email info @ptwatercraft.com (no space) and we will reply as soon as we can.
As beautiful as clear coated Okoume is, a couple of builder's have chosen to paint their dinghy interiors. They have also added non skid. I have to admit, I think these boats look super smart!
exterior paint job on Sadee Ann includes a nice racing stripe.Sadee Anne PT 11 nesting dinghy nestedSadee-Ann with painted interior and clear coated accents.A PT 11 in Holland with paint over non skid on the interiorThis PT 11 in Holland matches the 'mother ship'
As introduction, Sandy Goodall designed the PT 11 sail. Working with Sean Rankins of NW Sails and Canvas, and Russell, they prototyped and modified the sail to its current size and shape. Sandy is a friend and great to work with but I realized that I knew very little about his career as a sail designer. So I asked. (I have to say, that Sandy is pretty humble.)
Sandy in the PT 11
Ashlyn: How did you get into sailing and sail making? Sandy: I was very interested in sailing from a fairly early age (my mother was an avid sailor from the Canadian maritimes), and I knew that I wanted to get a job working with sailboats.
So it was either yacht design, boat building or sail making. I ended up choosing sail making, thinking that it involved the least math. (wrong!)
Ashlyn: When, where and how did you learn sail making, and how long have you been doing it?
Sandy: My family was living in Toronto in the late sixties, and the famous Danish sailmaker Hans Fogh (who trained under Paul Elvstrom) had emigrated to Canada, and lived in Toronto.
His loft was not far from my parentsâ house, and I visited him and nagged him until he agreed to take me on as his apprentice, after I completed university in 1974. So, it has been 40 years now!
Ashlyn: What types of boats do you deal with?
Sandy: Almost all kinds. My first real responsibility as a young sailmaker was cutting the Laser sails for the newly introduced Laser class dinghy.
But since then, I have sailed, and made sails for everything from Optimist dinghies to square riggers, high tech mono and multi hull racers, and Arab Dhows.
So all kinds of boats, really, and I appreciate all of them for different reasons.
Ashlyn: What type of design tools do you use?
Sandy: When I started sail  making back in 1974, it was all still pretty traditional. The master sailmaker kept all his design notes and secrets in a "little black book", and we apprentices were not necessarily privy to all the tricks of the trade. But we were in search of ways to increase the repeatability of a good design, so we gradually started to reverse engineer the traditional methods, at first using very simple programs written for HP programmable calculators.
Surprisingly, as a nonâmath person (I studied philosophy at university), I was very interested in this process, which ended up directing my career in sailmaking.
I continued along this path, becoming involved in the ongoing development of sail design software. I ended up selling my share of the Elvstrom Sails loft in Denmark, and focused on sail design software (âSmSw6â and âAzure Projectâ), and sail design, working free-lance, designing sails for other sailmakers. These days, sail design software is quite sophisticated, and we can do both structural and aerodynamic analysis on proposed sail designs, all on a lap top computer.
Ashlyn: Do you manufacture sails?
Sandy: Not any more. I was directly involved with manufacturing sails (Elvstrom Sails Denmark) until 1990, but I have specialized in computer sail design since then.
The digital recipe that is the result of the sail design process is then sent by E mail, and cut on some computer driven machine, to be assembled "somewhere in the world".
I collaborate with quite a number of sailmakers, where I do the design work, and they build the sails. I also coach other sailmakers in the use of the sail design software.
Ashlyn: "Do you think custom sail makers (in the USA for example) still have an impact in a world of factory made sails?"
Sandy: "Yes! It's hard to dispute the fact that the big offshore sail manufacturers offer very attractive prices, due to the economies of scale.
But there will always be an important place for local lofts, producing excellent sails and providing on-the-spot personal service to their clients. I'm happy to be in a position where I can collaborate with these local lofts (like Northwest Sails and Port Townsend Sails). The personal contact, the creative discussions, the boat measuring, prototyping etc. that this close collaboration allows, certainly represents added value for the end user."
Ashlyn: Do you have any favorite boat types, or types of design work?
Sandy: I like all kinds of sail boats, large and small, fast and slow, modern and traditional. But I suppose that I prefer smaller boats, and the projects that involve working with people I know and like.
Ashlyn: Can you predict anything concerning the future of sails and sail making?
Sandy: New high tech materials are constantly being developed at an increasing rate, and we can build sails that are lighter, and less stretchy, than ever before. But these (racing) sails are not necessarily a pleasure to use, for the leisure sailor. So there is still a place for traditional dacron and nylon sails, and there are still many people who appreciate and prefer them.
I think we will see more kites and âthick sailsâ, and lots more work on hydro foils, and various other drag reducing inventions! The "foiling moth" class is a good example of one of the many interesting directions things are going!
Ashlyn: How can people best contact you?
Sandy: Via E mail, at sgoodall@telus.net
Ashlyn: What information should people have on hand to begin a new "design" conversation?
Sandy: To begin with, just the size and type of boat they have, and where they sail, and whether it's racing or cruising. Then we can take it further from there.
Ashlyn: Thank you Sandy! Russell and I feel very fortunate to work with you. Sandy: You're welcome! I really enjoy working with you and Russell!
I am including this post because I think it is interesting and...
Suzanne Snadecki paints her dream into reality..
it involves my family doing something pretty amazing. My mother, who lives in France, woke up one morning and decided she wanted to travel around the country in a horse drawn gypsy wagon. A long time sailor herself, this will be her 'boat ashore'. Not one to do anything half way in spite of a shoe string budget, she has made major progress toward realizing her dream from scratch in little over a year.
BSD-Batwing (â˘) sail creator and founder of Balogh Sail Design, MARK BALOGH,
Suzanne has been raising the money for the project in small doses, with her paintings and donations from inspired friends. Her blog is rich with humanity, color, and the unfolding story of the project happening in the scenic country side of France. The project has also become a statement about slowing down in a world that seems to have forgotten how to look up and see the beauty around us.
"Pato" arrived in this truck. This is actually an older photo on a day when we left from the launch ramp.
"Rascal's" human, being a plumber by trade, created his own sturdy dolly.
