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COMPUMARINE |
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Congratulations to Edwin Pietersen 12 Ft. Power Dinghy Hi John, As I
promised a few months back I am sending you some new pics and a little more info
on my 12 foot power dinghy. Since
then the boat has been completed and launched. She is called Carpe Diem, a
fitting name for a boat launched on the fifth of May, freedom day (end of WW 2).
We have been using her in the canals of Amsterdam, enjoying the sights and
sounds. She is stored in the garage and we launch her on the edge of a little
lake which is connected to the canals. As I
bought the plans at the end of march last year I started construction of the
strongback a few weeks later. Taking
a little over a year to complete and an estimated 400 hours of work! She cost
around 1200 dollars to build. The plans
were followed, as much as possible taking into account that some conversions to
the metric system were needed. No
big problems building the strongback an the station molds. The trouble began
with the gluing together of the strips. I had decided not to staple them to the
molds because of the damage to the strips thus I had to clamp them together.
After some trial and error I started using some bungee cords to keep the strips
tight along the whole length. I used a quick drying wood glue and thus could do
one strip on either side and then let them dry while I had some coffee. Each
strip took 15 minutes to attach. No snags until the strips reached the end of
station mold zero (stem). I made another mold between station zero and one from
a rather thick piece of scrap wood which I shaped with a belt sander so the
strip-ends would have some support. A big
mistake was trying to cut cost and some work by using plywood for the stem and
transom. Next time I will definitely use solid mahogany. Veneering the transom
and station mold zero turned out to be more agony than expected. Also the
finished result is not as pleasing to the eye as solid wood would have been. Fiberglassing the hull was not a big problem as I had built some surf-boards
years ago. Though I cannot state enough that sanding is the key to a beautiful
boat. And sanding is not my favorite pastime.... Also checking the fiberglass
for faults would have spared me some irritation because now there is a visible
fault showing on the inside of my hull. Building
in wintertime is not a good idea when using epoxy, as I found out. (I knew this
but wanted to spend my short summer on the boat not building it) The skeg
and gunwales proved to be the easiest and fastest part of building Carpe Diem.
Both were made of mahogany. The seats
showed on the plans were not to my liking as I was planning on spending several
hours at an end on her. I wanted some back support. The benches on the pics are
the result of hours of testing, thinking and later on sawing, sanding and
epoxying. But in the end I am
happy with the result; light, strong and comfortable seats. She can hold four
adults a baby and a dog with ease. Though the benches could have been a few
inches more forward for balance. Now we use the space up front for baggage and
the dog. By the way the benches are made of mahogany one inch square. They are
one foot wide and one foot high. I hope
this info will help future builders of your beautiful boats make them even
better. Greetings, Edwin
Pietersen
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