Wooden Boat Site

D4 Sailing Dinghy Photos

Since this website has been getting about as much attention as my D4 Sailing Dinghy project recently, I thought I would take some photos of the boat and post them up here.

As you will be able to see there are still a few things left to complete before she gets on the water. It is also begining to look more like a restoration than a building project!

I have decided to get the D4 to the rowing stage and then sort out the sails after that.

This is what I have got left to do:

1. Tape the outside of the hull and then coat with epoxy resin.

2. Fit the centre seat.

3. Fill the joints around the seats and centreboard with epoxy filler and then tape with fibreglass.

4. Fit the oar locks.

And that should get it to a rowing stage.

To get it to sailing, I need to make the polytarp sail. I already have some aluminium tubing all cut to size for the mast and sprit.

Incidentally, I have been threatened that the D4 may be turned into a novelty sandpit and installed in the garden if I don’t get on and complete it!

D4 Sailing Dinghy

The D4 Sailing Dinghy is a simple Pram type design - a basic and practical 7′ 10″ boat.

It can be built as either a sailing of rowing dinghy as well as being suitable to use with a small outboard.

The great thing about the D4 sailing dinghy is that the basic plans are available for free download - which meant that since it would be the first boat that I would build, the initial outlay of cash would be reduced. I didn’t want to spend a whole heap of money to find out that I did not like sailing or that my boat building skills were non existent!

Details on the D4 can be found at bateau.com, but you will now find that it has been upgraded to the D5. The free plans can be found here.

I can vouch that the D4 has been fairly simple to build. It has no butt joints and all panels can be cut from a single sheet of plywood.

bateau.com reckon it can be built for less that $200. We’ll see

Welcome to my Wooden Boat Web Site

Hello and welcome to my Wooden Boat Web Site.

Withing these pages I aim to document the building of my D4 Sailing Dinghy and bring news of wooden boat topics from around the internet.