Damn Dinghy

     After using the boat with the new dinghy mounts last summer, (Dinghy Time) it became apparent that it was not as great an idea as I had hoped. Each time we wanted to use the dinghy, we had to lower the dinghy into the water (the easy part), then hook up the outboard to the upper davit & lower it to the rear deck, then transfer it to the swim platform, then install it on the transom of the dinghy. The other issue, with the existing transom mounted dinghy brackets, if the boat deflated some, the Forespar bracket would punch a hole in the rub rail and "hook" the dinghy making it difficult to get it off. When it's that much of a PIA to do, we tended not to use the tender...I needed a better solution.

My current setup

    The boat came with two well made very nice "lifting" davits on the flybridge, one port & one starboard that we use to get the outboard up and down from the flybridge. hmmm...

    I looked up the company, KATO Marine that manufactured them. I visited their website and viewed their options, thinking I could somehow repurpose those davits.

    I found this...

From the KATO MARINE Website

    I contacted them. They asked me about the boat and actually had the records of the original order for my davits! I took some measurements and using their bracket choices, sent them a drawing.

My Shop Drawing

    The salesman (Keith, who I suspect was one of the Owners) on the phone understood exactly what I was trying to accomplish and they produced a beautiful set of brackets. I had the parts in about a week & a 1/2.

A Work of Art

    The parts were not cheap, but very well made. This is some of the most beautiful fabrication I have ever seen. Everything was perfectly welded and highly polished.

    The parts fit exactly like they were supposed to. I had to mill down the plastic block, which I accomplished on my CNC. 

    The top brackets were thru-bolted with 5/16" SS bolts. There were existing holes underneath so I could easily bolt them. Again, hats off to Camano, everything is accessible!

    The lower brackets did take two people, one person in the Lazarette, and the other holding the bracket on the transom. Did I mention that everything in the Camano is accessible? The lower brackets were thru-bolted with 1/4" bolts and came with aluminum backing plates. 

    I was also able to relocate the Cam Cleat (another $85 saved) to the starboard davit, although I may get another one for the port side.

    Since these are lifting arms, they don't extend out as far as the normal dinghy arms, but by using my existing lifting arms I saved about $2200. At 230# capacity for each arm, it is more than sufficient to hold the total 130# of the dinghy & motor. Time to test it out!

When the project was done, I had 8 holes through the swim platform to repair. I drilled them out some to remove the old 5200 and used a countersink to flair out the top of the hole. I placed some tape underneath and filled each hole with fiberglass resin. 

   

    Once it cured, I sanded it smooth. I will need to paint or gelcoat the 8 repairs, but they are small and at least the wood inside the swim platform is sealed from water.