Christine DeMerchant builds an Apple Pie plywood and epoxy dinghy

Christine DeMerchant builds Chuck Merrell's Applie Pie dinghy

Christine DeMerchant builds Chuck Merrell's Applie Pie plywood dinghy

Christine DeMerchant is having a great time building an Apple Pie plywood and epoxy dinghy from plans drawn up by Chuck Merrell. The aim is to use it as a tender to her sailing cruiser.

Follow her progress here. The plans she’s working from are here, and there’s a nice article explaining how Chuck came to draw the plans here. Merry Christmas everyone – and if you read the last link, you’ll know why I say that.

The Apple Pie is about as small as a boat can go and still be useful, and I think it makes a great quick get-afloat summer project; a couple of winters ago I suggested it would also make a good mid-winter kitchen-table kind of project.

Either way, if you haven’t yet taken the plunge and built your own boat, and don’t know if it’s an activity you would enjoy, this could be the way to go.

PS – Check Christine’s message in the Comments link below. She has completed and launched the boat, and is as pleased as punch with it. There’s a YouTube clip showing just how well it works.

Alan Stancombe makes a nice job of his Cinderella open canoe Marie Rose

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Alan Stancombe’s Cinderella

Congratulations to Alan Stancombe on completing his good looking open canoe Marie Rose, built to my Cinderella design. I particularly like the small bouyancy boxes, and the carrying handle/beam strap/whatever it’s called.

Here’s what he has to say about it:

‘Hi Gavin:

‘I thought you might like to see the end product. You can see that I fitted the buoyancy tanks, which look quite nice. My only real problem was with the fillets. I taped them while the epoxy was too soft and consequently they are very lumpy. Also where I dot and dabbed between ties they were too big. Because there was no rebate and the joints were just butt joints I did not want to sand them down too much. Next time I will let them set before adding tape. The problem with this is that you get air bubbles in the joins.

‘Anyway it doesn’t look too bad for a first go built not from a kit. My varnishing skills are improving; I compromised on the paint/varnish and used International Interdeck inside as a non-slip medium.

‘Thanks for your help and great design.

‘Alan’

Plans for building Cinderella are included  in my book Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, and are also available from the free boat plans page.

PS Have you used the little logos below yet? They allow you to share this post via Twitter or Facebook, save the link in Google or your own web browser, and finally you can email the link to a friend. Handy, I’d say…


Norman Fuller’s Ella skiff at the 2010 HHBR meet at Barton Turf

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Rowing for Pleasure weblogger Chris Partridge and Norman Fuller demonstrate the Ella skiff under oars and with an electric outboard.

Norman brought his Ella to the 2010 HBBR meeting at Barton Turf, and quite a few of us had some fun with it. These clips show Chris putting the little boat through her paces, while Norman demonstrates the outboard, which is a 12lb model that he has set up with control lines.

Free plans for the Ella skiff can be found on the Free boat plans page of this website – you’ll find a link to the free plans page right at the top of this page.