The Serendipity Dinghy
by Len Warren
Every year I entered a 10-mile sponsored row for our Royal National Lifeboat Institution charity. In my transom-stern dinghy it was becoming hard going. Then, in 1985, when I retired (at 65) I remembered seeing a lovely little 10-foot roundstern dinghy at the 1952 Festival of Britain, built by Mr. Ewing McGruer Sr. of the world-famous yacht builders of Scotland, and decided to build a smaller version. With no transom to drag in the water it had to be winner.
Building with a transom, each strake is fitted to the stem then run past back the transom and the excess sawn off. With the round-stern, each strake has to be fitted to the forward stem and the run back and fitted to the stern stem requiring twice as much effort—no wonder they are so much more expensive.
With the help of Howard I. Chappelle, I drew out a set of lines for a 9-foot round-stern clinker-built dinghy. I built it in the backyard in London in a dilapidated shed. The guttering was inside to catch roof leaks, and one side was a plastic sheet—ideal for instant expansion of floor space. The stocks were free-standing and portable so they could be moved around to gain working room in the 10 x 8 foot shed.
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