Enjoy Pictures recently received of boats launched this summer or boats in use. I love the new colors added to PT 11’s; now sporting blue, green, sunny yellow, mellow yellow, cream, red, white…have I missed any? Beautiful!! Keep those pictures coming! What do you think about a photo contest???? Let me know and I will work on prizes to offer. 😉
On June 30th, Cassandra McDermott and 10 year old Milo arrived to pick up their PT 11 kit. ‘Cassie’ is a young woman who delivers boats, does a lot of sailing, boat finishing, refinishing, and polishing. I suspect she is very good at it, too.
Meeting Cassie and Milo (who also loves to sail) was a real pleasure. It was particularly exciting to have a pre-teen totally into building a PT 11 and that a woman was to be the primary builder. It often feels like building boats is perceived as ‘such a guy thing’ and I like to encourage more female involvement with the kits.
Besides the distinction for Cassie & Milo as the first ‘mom & pre-teen’ team so far to build one of our kits, they did it in record time.
On August 3rd, barely a month after picking up the kit, we received an email, and I quote, “Well we launched last week! I will send you some pictures soon….We are having a blast. She is a great boat!” Then she sent this great photo of Milo in the boat, with it’s shiny blue hull, (in honor of the SEA HAWKS)… Russell and I were very impressed!! 😉
Cassie totally dedicated herself to the project, including setting her alarm clock for 3AM to make a fill coat. They really familiarized themselves with the manual so that while waiting for one thing to cure, they knew what they could begin to prepare and have ready for steps later on. Warm summer weather helped while they had several simultaneously curing parts. This consolidated a lot of the ‘waiting-for-cure’ time inherent in wood/epoxy boat building.”The build went really well. We made a few mistakes-nothing structural and nothing we couldn’t fix,” she told me.
They also had a strong motivation. Milo was going back to school at the end of the Summer and Cassie wanted to be sure he had plenty of time to sail in his new boat before then. Milo wrote us a letter that deserves a frame in our shop. 
Photos & captions following, (compliments of Cassie and Milo), tell much of the story best.
See some recent feedback from our builder’s about our kits:
Robert in MA: It is a fantastic kit, and I thoroughly enjoyed the building project. Honestly, I felt a little intellectually lazy doing the build. Usually there are multiple details that have to be thought through, improvised, fleshed out, etc. Not with the PT11. You did all the thinking for me and didn’t leave out anything. I didn’t mind being lazy for a change. 🙂 I can’t think of a single thing to improve in the kit or manual. I can’t wait to start rowing and sailing. August 2014
Simon in New Zealand: I didn’t really realize how much of a delight to build she’s been until the bumper had been stuck on and I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t anything left to do except go sailing.
On a recent camp cruising excursion to BC, we towed our PT 11 along behind the Water Bug. We did not take the sailing rig but we really enjoyed after dinner rows around the different anchorages. The evening light is so beautiful and on calm, clear summer days, the reflections in the water make you feel like you are looking into another world or floating along on the sky. It was mesmerizing. I put together some clips of these evening rows. I look at my wind swept and bedraggled state with some embarrassment but I had a great time out in the vast wilderness of Desolation Sound. Here is a short video: SKY ROWING 
I admit it..I am a bit of a chicken when it comes to some things. I am not a skier, will not go near a roller coaster, and have never been white water rafting. Russell on the other hand… well let’s just say, in reference to THIS VIDEO, a standing wave, big or small, is as good an excuse as any for a little fun.
In any case, I do love a good adventure. Exploring the Toba Inlet in early July brought us to the mouth of the Brem River. At low tide, the river hit the inlet with some gusto to the delight of several seals, and, Russell. Had I not been holding our one, good, and yet very water sensitive camera, I would have been a lot less concerned. We could have played at this spot a lot longer than we did, although the big and biting black flies were a bit of a menace.
Russell insisted that I keep the sound on the first clip (you probably understand why, much to my chagrin) and I did my ‘darndest’ to be quiet on subsequent takes. Being in the boat was a bit ‘knarly‘ AND really fun. The video hardly does it justice. The PT 11 clearly liked it. So I hope this puts a big smile on your face. The PT11 in the Rapids. Cheers, Ashlyn PTW 
I have to sit down and really try to make account of this summer’s first camp cruise. For now, I can offer a couple of videos and notes that can give you the idea. Today’s video is a compilation of clips on the Water Bug.
Since the proa is in the yard, we took our experimental catamaran motor boat up into Canada. It could be compared to a road trip in a Carmanghia convertible … except we probably burned less fuel. 😉 We took camping gear and towed the PT 11 for the better part of more than 400 miles. Our boat of many names.. (Kermit, Grasshopper, Pie in the Sky, Skeeter, Water Bug…) has an old 15 HP Honda outboard and with that, as loaded up as we were, we averaged 2/3 GPH at 11 knots. Under normal load and not towing, Water Bug can cruise at 11 knots at 1/2 GPH, with a cruising speed of 15 knots. We took advantage of waves to surf and shallow waters to explore since this boat is good at both. We discovered that finding spots to both safely moor the boat and camp ashore is not so easy. There are lots of places for kayakers to pull their boats up and camp, or for small boats to anchor and sleep aboard. That did not help us much and we learned a lot for next time.
Happy camping from a happy camper. Ashlyn 😉 PTW
I am always happy to show off new boats from our family of builders. I am also so very impressed with the beautiful work everyone has done. Here are some pictures from this Spring.
206 Composites’ Simon Miles, here in Port Townsend, has had 3 PT11 projects in progress. One of these was just launched on June 25th. Simon was a student at the NW School for Wooden Boat Building when Russell taught a class while building the first PT Skiff prototype in 2009. He now runs his own business after working on some very high tech boat building projects including the BMW/Oracle America’s cup boats, sailboat rudders,carbon bicycle wheels, and submarines. simonmiles206 at gmail.com
Bob in BC launched his PT 11 this Spring.
“Attached a photo of the first nesting, it fit perfectly.
“The paint is not the final, it will eventually be red, but needed the boat some it will be prime grey for a bit. I used System 3 water basted epoxy primer and it worked well and seems very hard, it will be tested this summer.
I did not clear coat the interior and will decide whether to clear coat or paint next year. Added strips of no-skid to the bottom panel by taping a few strips and adding non-skid grit from Interlux to some epoxy . It works very well and is not obvious.
Rows beautifully and my 100 lb wife and I can load it in the truck easily. Should fit will on the nets of my F31 trimaran.”
A PT 11 just launched in Florida. Here showing the first ‘in-water’ assembly practice.
Family fun on a PT 11 in the Bahamas: Seeing these young gents sailing around put a big smile on my face..
The latest from SV Skye / PT11 nested on the cabin top of the Lyle Hess 32, Skye.
B and D Boats (banddboats at gmail.com) in Boothbay Maine just finished a PT 11 for a customer.
Another PT 11 just ready for launch in Renton, WA and another in Sonora CA. If we don’t have pictures now, we will share them next time.
Last but not least, a couple of pictures from the launching of our new PT11 /2014.
Things have come a long way since we first started producing kits. We have put a lot of effort into making production more efficient and timely. The current kits contain parts that require less fitting and fiddling. We have refined the kit, and the manual.
One thing we have maintained is the stance that a really good nesting dinghy is a complex boat and the PT 11 is a really good nesting dinghy. In order to offer it as a kit that even an amateur can build, we have had to take the idea of ‘kit’ to a new level. Some have asked why our kits are more expensive than the average kit boat of comparable size. Others who have bought and built our kits have said that we do not charge nearly enough. Their praise has been high for the content, instructions, accuracy, attention to detail, and overall quality of the kit and resulting boat. While kits are not exactly flying out the door in mass quantities and we are not getting rich, we are not complaining. We stand by our custom products and personalized service, and we feel that we have a special family of PT11 and PT Skiff owners, who have expressed great pleasure in both building and using their boats.
…given the fact that we have forgotten to pack a part on occasion. This featured comment, in all it’s sarcastic humor, is a prime example…
“I found a small glitch in your packing. Nothing major: the installation of the dagger board cover calls for two washers (under the dogs, I think). Without them the dogs are too low with the gasket in place…. Through an outrageous and abject failure in your quality control, none were included. 😉
I know I can source nylon washers locally, even though that will put me far over budget. I thought I’d touch base and ask about specs: is there anything special other than serving as a spacer and friction control for these washers? Are any of the dimensions particularly important? Are you going to spank Russell? ” J.W. June 2014.
“man’s best friend” has been known to find kit parts to be yummy chew toys. Keeping parts in your crate with the lid on until needed keeps out both excess dust and curious ‘Fido’. I know it is nice to have company in the shop but there are lots of bite sized bits in our kits. We use a detailed packing list when filling the crates and if we checked it off, we put it in. (granted, sleep deprivation can interfere from time to time..) In most cases, we will replace lost pieces free of charge so do let us know if it just cannot be found..(along with a photo of your orderly shop space!…just kidding… 😉 Seriously though, there are a lot of small parts in our kits that need to be kept together in a safe container and we know of at least one 5 axis shaped inner stem that was definitely lost to the shop dog.
The PT 11 is known as a “nesting dinghy” and while many people know what that means, many again, do not. It is easy to explain that the boat can be separated into two parts, and the bow half ‘nests’ in the aft half, making it possible to own a relatively large dinghy that will store in a relatively small space, such as, on the deck of your boat. I had assumed that the term “nesting dinghy” referred to exactly that. In our circle of boats and dinghies, it does, but is it the right term?
The internet provides lots of definitions that all begin with the base word NEST. My 4” thick Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines “nest” in the 9th definition as,”to fit or place one within another”… Or the 12th: “ to fit together or within another or one another..” This definition works until I get asked if it means that one or more of our dinghies stack well. The fact that the dinghy comes apart into two ‘nestable’ parts, is left out of the equation. The word “nesting” is not even in this big dictionary. It is online and I kind of like this one lonley meaning for the word even if it is related only in an abstract manner ;
nesting
— adj, nesting (ˈnɛstɪŋ)
— n
the tendency to arrange one’s immediate surroundings, such as a work station, to create a place where one feels secure, comfortable, or in control.
I have also had people ask me about our “nester”. Looking up the definitions for this was interesting. In my big old dictionary, “Nestor” is the wisest and oldest of the Greeks in the Trojan War. In the urban dictionary online however, see this screen shot:
But that is nestor with “or” and I usually get “nester” with “er”. “Nester” is not in my dictionary but it is online and not exactly fitting. Look at the urban dictionary definition too. This was new to me! You can be sure I will refrain from casually using the word “nester” when talking about our beautiful dinghy. 😉
Urban definition:
I think, after this belated study on this terminology when related to the PT 11, we can settle on something closer to the following: The PT Eleven is an 11 ft, two part dinghy with nestable parts that store in a 6ft by 4ft 2 inch by 20 inch space.
You probably know where to find more info on our PT Eleven nestable dinghy kit and if not, click HERE.
Have you seen our Youtube channel?
Thank you for following! PTW 😉
More NEST definitions. (I deleted the bird and insect references…)
nest
noun
…
4.
a snug retreat or refuge; resting place; home.
5.
an assemblage of things lying or set close together, as a series of boxes or trays, that fit within each other: a nest of tables.
verb (used with object)
8.
to settle or place (something) in or as if in a nest: to nest dishes in straw.
9.
to fit or place one within another: to nest boxes for more compact storage.
verb (used without object)
…
11.
to settle in or as if in a nest.
12.
to fit together or within another or one another: bowls that nest easily for storage.
…
Origin:
before 900; Middle English, Old English (cognate with Dutch, German nest; akin to Latin nīdus nest, Old Irish net, Welsh nyth, Sanskrit nīḍa lair) ≪ Indo-European *nizdo- bird’s nest, equivalent to *ni down (see nether) + *zd-, variant of *sd-, ablaut variant of *sed-, v. base meaning “sit” (see sit) + *-o- theme vowel
Related forms
nest·a·ble, adjective
nest·er, noun
nest·like, adjective
nest·y, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2014.
We recently finished our sixth (yes, sixth) PT 11 prototype. This was to incorporate a few design changes and re-write much of the manual in an effort to make the boat easier to build. Building this many boats can lead to some labor saving ideas and we felt that we needed to do our best to make this, “kind-of-high-tech” boat as easy to build as possible.
In the last related blog post we detailed some of the changes we have made to the boat. Everything worked well, the new manual is done, and kit parts are stacked to the ceiling and ready to fly out the door.
Relevant details even if you already have a PT11;
We have a few new details to share. Most are in the new manual but could be useful for people that already have PT 11’s.
The back seat had two issues: One is that the seat needed a way to be held against the tank wall when nesting the boat. For some reason we never realized that if we trimmed 1/4” off of the aft edge of the seat (it’s now 7” wide), it could wedge between the cleat and the shock chord knot as shown below. It’s secure enough not to fall over when nesting the boat and that’s all it needs.
The other issue is that the back seat could slide forward, (even with the bunji cord) come off the cleats, and drop you on your butt.
The fix is pretty simple. We trimmed a bit from the outboard edges of the seat with a sanding block (to move the seat aft) and we block sanded the forward corners of the seat as shown, all so that there was enough cleat showing to drill holes in. We then drilled 1/4” holes to a depth of 3/8” for the 5/8” long hardwood dowels to glue into.
This works well, it’s an easy fix, and if you already have a boat, we can send the dowels to you along with the handy-dandy tether washer we shown below.
We have always kept our dagger-board trunk cap in the forward compartment, but it can be hard to find in there if it’s full of stuff. It’s easy to glue a tether into a hole drilled in the cap, but where to tie the tether? To the washer under the forward turn dog, that’s where.
It’s a special washer made for us by a neighbor who laser cuts other parts for us as well. This is a thin Delrin(TM) part, but we had a very hard time breaking one.
Replace the round washer with this one and rotate the washer aft for fishing the tether through the hole.
Holding the dagger-board down has always been done with a rope loop that can hook over the aft turn dog, but having the loop fairly snug (as shown below) keeps the board down all the way.
Having the board down fully will make the boat climb like a 12 meter when sailing upwind and it will also help you run aground. No, what I meant is that it will help if you run aground.
We hit a rock very hard and not only did it nearly throw us out of the boat, but the sharp trailing edge of the board hit the aft end of the trunk (because the board was up about four inches) and did a small amount of damage to the trunk. The dagger-board was fine, but we now sail with the dagger-board down all the way or we unhook it and let it float up (about a third of the way).
RB PTW
Since we began producing the PT 11 kit, all of our costs have gone up. Plywood, CNC machining, and everything else we use has increased in price.
For now, we are holding the price of the basic kit where it has been since we began but we need to increase the prices for the rigs and foil kits.
Our sailing rigs are getting both better and lighter. These rigs are not a kit. They are ready to drop in the boat and go sailing. All the spars and some of the fittings are carbon fiber, the hardware is Harken, and the sails are beautifully made out of top materials. The unfortunate fact is that they are also more expensive for us to produce than when we began. (Clicking on the photos below will lead to detailed posts, in new frames, about the rig and foils kit.)
Our foils take a surprising amount of materials, CNC time, and handwork. Like everything we produce, these parts are clean, efficient, and nice to look at. Not your average kit dinghy foils…
