Our new home built nesting dinghy

[Ann and Neville Clement]

A lot of folks have been asking about the new 10+ foot nesting dinghy Nev and I are building to replace the old deflatable with it's heavy outboard. 

The new dingy was designed by Ed Davis who lives in Maine and cruises to the Bahamas where we see him in the winter.  There are still some bugs to work out of the plans, but they will be for sale through us when we are done and Ed says he will have a video to go with the plans soon. 

We call it the Ed's Five Star because it nests well, sails well with it's little gaff sail right up in the bow, it rows well, planes with one person aboard using a TWO horse very light weight engine, goes real fast with two up and Ed's wife always arrives dry to any and all beach parties.  It fits neatly on our Tiki 46 boarding ramp, and can be assembled in the water so only one person is needed to launch the pieces and assemble the boat in the water or retrieve it for storage on the bow of the mother ship.  It really looks good and is stable in the water and there is floatation for safety.

Ed designed this dinghy for the bow of his Triton 28 monohull which he has often sailed from Maine to Bahamas.  The dinghy is light weight but has seen plenty of use in 10 years of hard winter cruising.  We are eager to get ours built and in the water. 

Currently Nev is recovering from total knee replacement so he is not able to work very hard on the project, but does get to it for a few hours each day.  We are also caring for our old friend John who has Hospice nurses for one hour twice a week and us for the rest of the time. 

I am about to buy a new mobile phone so will take pics when I get it and will post them on this site. 

For anyone who is too eager to wait, you might want to look at the Don Greene nesting dinghy plans for the Chamelion which we admired while in Bahamas last winter.  Nev likes to build wooden dinghys so we will eventually get around to building one of those too.  The Chamelion also assembles in the water but it has a fore and aft bench seat.  It looks great too, but we have never had one on the boarding ramp of our boat.   The wind was right so the guy had to haul anchor and go.  Understandable.