My Payson must be the latest edition. He died a couple years back.

Anyhoo, we didnt make the tortoise, 7 years ago we built the Nymph, very fasy to row but very tender to get in and out of, then gave it away some years later. Would recommend the Ruebens Nymph as it is 6" more beam. 

Currently we row a 6'6" fibreglass catamaran dinghy, which I cut in half, stretched it by 50cm (makes it ~8', can carry us and two bicycles) and now its a nestor. An average rower, it needs some repairs now. But it is very stable.

Gary, I take it your are missing page 88? My copy has the cut out dimensions, check your email.

There's nothing wrong with the Tortoise: those who mock it have perhaps never used one, but it does tend to be a bit splashy in a chop, which can make for wet rowing.  What do you expect from such a short boat?  Ours served us well and faithfully in the S America, the Falkland Is, South Orkney and South Georgia and is possibly the only tender to have been hauled up by the crane on Gough I!  There are probably better designs, but I found it more impressive than the Elegant Punt, which I thought a bit disappointing.  If not as disappointing as the smaller of the two Nutshells.  The Nymph is a delightful dinghy, but designed, I think, for 7'6"; the 6'1" Scraps is probably both stiffer and more buoyant.  And a bit wetter in a chop.

The main drawback with a nesting or folding dinghy is the sloth of the average human being.  Having to put a dinghy together effectively discourages one from going ashore and, perhaps even more importantly, from hauling the dinghy on deck with the result that you will end up towing it when you most certainly should not be.

Personally, I don't think davits are a realistic option on your wee boat.

I doubt that the Tortoise is 'that bad'. As well as Badger having one Alan has a Tortoise on Zebedee and he has been around the world with it. It is all a question of what do you want the dinghy to do, or what limitations are you prepared to put up with versus ease of building, low cost and light weight. The Tortoise is a very low cost easy to build reasonable load carrier but does not do everything you may want. As Annie suggested there are other small designs such as the Wellsford dinghies which perform a lot better but are more complex to build, the Nymph would fall into this category. On Footprints we have a 2.7m inflatable keel inflatable dinghy. It was not cheap but carries a good load, stows well and rows Ok because of the inflatable keel. We also have a 2hp outboard for this but we seldom use it. The inflatable is the workhorse. I am just finishing off a very lightweight (4mm ply) Nymph type stitch and tape dinghy to carry on deck for rowing enjoyment which the inflatable does not provide. 

Do you have davits on your boat or could you fit some, that way you could get away with a larger dinghy which would do more of what you want. David Tyler on Tystie has a dinghy which is about 11ft long which is carried on davits for coastal cruising and is a very good dinghy. A nesting dinghy as you mention is another way of carrying a good dinghy on limited deck space. Probably a dinghy such as the Nymph would lend itself to this- you just need to be prepared to cut it in half as soon as you have finished building it!

Gary Pick wrote:

  

David can you tell me more about the Skimmer? For example what was it like to row in a bit of a chop?

Skimmer was not really much of a rowing boat in anything but a flat calm, I suspect the Tortoise would not be that great in a chop either. The Skimmer was best with a 2hp outboard on it and I think that is the intention of the design - an outboard powered skiff. It was quick and easy to build being essentially square. If you want a good rowing dinghy you are probably better to go to the Nymph design which is in the same book and which would still be easy to build, I had one for a while and enjoyed just going off rowing in it. I have also built the Bolger designed 'Elegant Punt' which is in another of his books. That was also very quick and easy to build and fun to row.