We’ve also started a dinghy, but work on it has come to a standstill since laying the keel for Lion. She is an 11 1/2 foot lapstrake rowing and sailing dinghy designed by Herreshoff. The drawing comes from an excellent book titled “Building the Herreshoff Dinghy” (Barry Thomas, Mystic Seaport Museum, 1977). In addition to the plans, this book contains a well-documented, first-hand account of the methods used by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company .
So far, we have finished lofting, made and erected the molds, fabricated the keel and stem of white oak, steam bent and joined those two pieces and cut the rabbet to rough shape. We purchased white cedar from Castner’s Sawmill and milled enough for all the planking. The mahogany transom has been glued up and cut to rough size. She will be fastened with bronze rivets and screws.
(NOTE: For latest work on the boat, check the Deck page.)
Click on any photo to enlarge and scroll through the galleries:
Lofting
Profile and Plan views at the bow.
Stern view
Body Plan. It’s hard to make out unless you enlarge the photo, but the black pencil sections are lofted from Mystic’s Table of Offsets, and the red sections are the re-lofting of the mold positions, M1 through M10.
Molds
Constructing the 10 molds of white pine
Aft end molds
Forward end
A batten is fastened along the centerline and leveled in preparation for setting up the molds
First mold set. The building space for the dinghy is on the balcony alongside Lion
Angle irons attached the molds to the floor. Herreshoff’s manufacturing method (which I am trying to follow) was to take each mold to the steambox for bending on the frames. The angle irons made it a little easier to remove and replace the molds.
Stem/Keel
Josh tends the steambox with the first stem piece inside
Here we go
It was tougher to bend than I thought
Nicole and Josh clamp her down
Cooling overnight
The bending crew
Once off the form, it was restrained from straightening for a while longer
Cutting the notch for joining to the keel
Stem/keel joint. Resorcinal glue and a couple of bronze screws hold the joint together
The aft end of the keel has a slight bend. The form used to steam bend it is seen on the floor under the keel
While we had the steambox going, we decided to get a little practice bending frames over the molds
The 1/2″ x 1/2″ white oak frames bent very well
On top of the steambox, a meat thermometer gave us an idea of the inside temperature. It remained between 190-200F. Behind the thermometer is a partition slid down inside the box so we only had to heat up half the box for short pieces. I eventually removed it, as it proved too much of a hassle to use.
Planking
Josh with some of the beautiful 1″ white cedar from Castner’s Sawmill
A jig set up to resaw the 1″ cedar boards
Josh does the resawing on the 36″ bandsaw
12″ wide boards resawed with no problem
Planing the resawed boards to finish thickness of 1/4″
A nice batch of cedar planking
Similar Dinghy
A similar dinghy under construction at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway on Martha’s Vineyard
A similar dinghy under construction at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway on Martha’s Vineyard
Comments on either the website or the boat will be greatly appreciated. You can contact me (Mike Danesi) at [email protected].
