Restoring a 1940's traditional dinghy and converting it to a sailboat.

Documenting the restoration of Willow and her conversion to sail.
She has been a big success as a family boat so far. Powered by outboard engine and oar, we have explored many rivers and lakes across Tasmania. The bilge keels were added ten years ago during her initial restoration. With them, she is stable in the water and sits solidly on her trailer or a beach. She easily cruises at 5 knots at two thirds throttle with a 3.5 hp outboard and keeps a steady course.
The work to finish converting her to a sailboat stalled for a long time and Willow was lost at the back of the garage behind a mountain of furniture, along with my drive and enthusiasm for the project. The beauty of trailer boats is that they are always there waiting, and if stored properly they won't deteriorate and cause you worry, unlike their moored cousins.
Lately I have remembered how important it is to have a boat and how good it feels to work on one.The final finishing stages are taking place and soon I will feel her come alive in the breeze. Hopefully she will sail adequately and I am excited and curious to find out how well. I have owned and sailed several different types of boats over the years from performance sailing dinghies to trailer sailers and keelboats and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. With this boat I wanted something that was very easy to set up and was uncluttered and roomy for its size. It needed to be a boat that was easy and relaxing to sail, could be taken on little cruising adventures and could equally be used as a roomy fishing or picnic boat when required. Yes it's at tall order! As far as a sailing rig is concerned, I did not hesitate to choose a standing lug rig as it is very easy to build, set up and handle and can be stored on the boat. As for a keel, I wanted something that was fixed (set and forget) and unintrusive that could do the job, but also would be easy to launch and retrieve from a trailer.
At the time when I designed and made the keels, very little information was available online about shoal draft dinghies. I spent countless enjoyable hours trying to track down pictures and stories from small boats that had chine runners, bilge keels or full keels. I remember seeing one of Conrad Natzio's designs, Sandpiper with twin three inch bilge runners that was claimed to be able to sail in very shallow water. The design incorporated a lee board for deeper water and unfortunately, like many small boats on the internet, I could find no reviews of it's performance with or without the board at the time. Then I found a little about Matt Laden's Paradox microcruiser which relied on its sharpie design for its chine runners to work.The concept was an inspiration though and encouraged me to keep trying.The most fascinating and applicable information I found were photos of a mysterious small tri keeled cruising dinghy on a sailing blog. This was all ten years ago and the mystery dinghy I realise now was a Devon Scaffie. There is endless information available about them these days and they are a very capable cruising dinghy by all accounts.
And finally, I found infomation about Swallow online. Coincidently, her owner lived close and we shared infomation and went sailing. Swallow is a twelve foot dinghy with a six inch full keel. I found her enjoyable to sail and her pointing abilities adequate. The deep full keel made her slow to turn and some care was needed when coming about. Even so, with a steady approach I had no trouble tacking her and getting where I needed to go.
As for my design, I believe the six inch bilge keels in conjunction with the long central keel should be enough to make it effective. I did drawings to work out the centre of lateral resistance and situated my mast and sail plan accordingly. Whether I have the balance and sizing right, I will have to wait and see. If she can potter about and feel comfortable and tack through the wind 90 to 100 degrees, then I will consider it a success.
Meanwhile I will carry on and keep enjoying the work, with my mind on the job and my fingers crossed.🤞
#dinghycruising #sailing #boatrestoration
#boatbuilding #sailingdinghy
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[@romandybala]

Well,youve done a mighty fine job and saved her for a few more years.

[@TrevC-co6xk]

Thankyou. Yeah it means a lot to me to keep this one going.

[@RobertB4170]

Fabulous.
Thanks for sharing.

[@TrevC-co6xk]

Thankyou!