I
f you read last month’s
feature on forward-looking
sonar, you might have
noticed a tatty-looking
dinghy cowering beneath
the thousands of pounds-worth
of equipment on test.
The dinghy in question is an old
3.6m (12ft) Tepco sailing dinghy,
modified years ago for use as a
tender. My first memories of it date
back to learning to sail on my
uncle’s boat as a teenager. One
day, while heading out to his boat,
the outboard failed and my
younger cousin and I started to
row. Our progress in the heavy
boat, stuffed with provisions and
(I have to say) more competent
rowers, was pitifully slow – so slow,
in fact, that the passing RNLI
inshore lifeboat saw fit to offer to
rescue us.
In time, its weight and size
prompted my uncle to replace it
with a younger, sleeker model.
Since then, the boat has seen little
love, spending its time upside
down first in a hedge and then in
the PBO car park, after a brief spell
afloat as part of another test. In
short, then, it seemed the ideal
choice when we needed a hull in
which to drill seven huge holes for
through-hull transducers.
Neglect is no friend to any boat,
however, and as we turned the
hull the right way up most of the
timberwork fell off in a shower of
rotten splinters and woodlice.
At some point in its history, the
gunwales and some of the knees
had been replaced with plywood,
which had rotted and delaminated
beyond repair. The forward
bulkhead and half deck, also
plywood, were in a similarly poor
state, but the solid hardwood
thwart and side benches had
survived well and could beretained. However, the plywood
panels below them, intended to
enclose polystyrene buoyancy
blocks, were scrap.
Although some of the woodwork
was cosmetic, knees, gunwales
and bulkheads provide much of
the hull’s rigidity, so something
had to be done.Tear down
Our first step was to rip out all of
the rotten timber. A demolition bar
made short work of the gunwales,
foredeck and plywood panelling;
the bulkhead put up more of a
fight, but with the aid of a Bosch
multi-cutter we cut away the
glassfibre holding it in place and it
pulled away. A run round with the
vacuum cleaner revealed a sorry
sight, with flaking paint and a crack
in the port side extending about six
inches down from the gunwale.
Clearly, we needed some
materials, so we headed down
the road to visit our local builders’
merchant, Sydenhams. They
supplied us with four 4m lengths of
pressure-treated softwood approx
40mm x 15mm, a sheet of 6mm
WBP ply and a sheet of 9mm WBP
ply for £38. The local branch of
Screwfix provided a box of 200
stainless steel screws for £14:
these are A2 stainless, so not ideal
for the marine environment, but we
reasoned they would probably last
as long as the softwood. A trip to
the chandlery to buy an inspection
hatch, two drain bungs and 1.5kgBudget dinghy repairs
You don’t have to pursue an award-
winning finish in order to transform a
neglected, rotting, 12ft sailing dinghy
into a perfectly safe and serviceable
craft, as David Pugh reports
A demolition bar made short work of the rotten gunwales and foredeckTransferring the shape of the hull
to the bulkhead to gain a good fitABOVE The new bulkhead epoxied
in place. The lashing holds the hull
in shape while the epoxy sets
RIGHT A flush-cutting multi-tool
removed the original GRP tabbingof epoxy set us back a further £50,
bringing our expenditure to £102.Minimum restoration
We started work by repairing the
glassfibre damage. A thick mix of
epoxy neatly filled the numerous
screw holes where the previous
gunwales had been screwed
through. The crack in the port
side we simply ground back and
reinforced on both sides with
strips of glass tape wetted out
with unthickened epoxy.
The next stage was to make and
fit a new forward bulkhead. We
roughly cut a new panel from 9mm
plywood using the old bulkhead
to give the shape. However, on
putting it in place we found that thePRACTICAL