PT 11 Nesting Dinghy

Product Description

January 2025: After a long wait, this exceptional dinghy kit is now entering production in the UK. Thank you to everyone who supported this project by paying a deposit.

The PT Eleven is a highly advanced nesting dinghy with exceptional rowing and sailing performance and refined features, including the ability to assemble and disassemble the boat on the water, in seconds.

Designed for the serious cruiser, the front half of the boat nests inside the aft half for stowing on the deck of a cruising yacht or in the back of a vehicle. The extra length of the assembled boat allows for a high-performance hull that can be propelled efficiently by oars or sail.

Russell Brown of PT Watercraft is an internationally recognised designer, boatbuilder and sailor with a reputation for highly refined designs. The PT 11 is the result of Russell's thirty year fascination with the challenges of nesting boat design: creating a boat that is rugged and practical, nests as small as possible and is easy to assemble and disassemble. For the boat to perform well, these properties mustn't compromise the boat's strength or the efficiency of the hull shape.

The rowing performance of the PT 11 is quite surprising for an 11 foot dinghy. One completed a 70 mile endurance race in under 20 hours and finished in the top third of a 120 boat fleet. She rows so well that an outboard motor is unnecessary when using the boat as a tender. The boat has two rowing stations to allow adjusting the trim of the boat for optimum efficiency even with multiple passengers aboard.

The profiled NACA foils help the PT 11 sail upwind like a much larger boat. The custom rig with two-piece carbon fibre mast and boom has been designed to be the lightest and easiest to use dinghy rig on the market. The rig can be set up and broken down in minutes, making a quick sail in a new anchorage easily managed. The hull itself can be assembled and disassembled in seconds, even while afloat in a mild chop or in the dark.

The forward half of the boat contains a large watertight storage area for transporting dry stores and gear. The fully-decked forward section also sheds water into the cockpit footwell for easy bailing. There are also sealed buoyancy tanks fore and aft. The daggerboard case is sealed with a very dependable cap with a watertight gasket that doesn't leak when towing in rough water.

The kit design takes full advantage of CNC technology to make the boat as easy as possible for anyone to build, using tongues and slots, scribe marks and alignment notches. This ensures that the boat goes together perfectly without any sort of jig. The instruction manual is extremely detailed, with hundreds of photos, and describes all the techniques used and how to get the best result at every step.

Five different thicknesses of plywood are used, to make each part as strong as it needs to be without adding unnecessary weight.

A really good nesting dinghy requires a certain amount of complexity and the PT Eleven uses many custom engineered parts and high-tech materials to produce a boat that is so convenient and enjoyable to use. Builders seem to agree that the expense pays off in the finished product and the kit has been a word-of-mouth success with almost no advertising.

Building a PT 11 may not be for everyone. If you want the performance that this boat offers, you'll need to be willing to put in the effort and time required and to follow the very detailed build manual carefully. Building the boat makes an excellent winter or summer project and can be a very satisfying and rewarding experience that is increasingly rare in modern life. You'll also learn a new set of skills and get a very versatile boat at the end.

This kit is manufactured by us in the UK, following the exacting standards set by PT Watercraft. In order to keep the prices similar to the USA, we have sourced as much of the hardware as possible in the UK. While there are some slight differences, there is absolutely no compromise in quality and it has all been done in consultation with PT Watercraft. The most noticeable change is that we have made the hull alignment clips out of CNC-cut stainless steel, eliminating the fiddly hand-shaping of the original parts and ensuring that each one is precisely the same. Russell continues to improve the USA kits based on feedback.

This incredible little boat has been a huge success in North America and we received a lot of interest in our project to bring it to the UK and Europe. The complexity of manufacturing this kit made it a significant investment and we are grateful to everyone who paid a deposit so that it could go ahead.

Base Kit

The base kit includes everything you need to build the PT 11 hull. The sailing and rowing parts are separate add-ons so you can choose what you need according to how you intend to use the boat.

This kit has many parts. The following list is not exhaustive.

• Pre-cut wooden panels with pre-cut joints and pre-drilled tie holes
• Copper ties
• WEST System epoxy kit with metering pumps and fillers
• Woven glass fabric
• Peel ply for chine taping
• Stainless steel hull alignment clips and fasteners
• Stainless steel connective hardware with G-10 star knobs
• Moulded fibreglass mast step socket tube and plywood mast step partners
• Plywood daggerboard case with G-10 strip for edges.
• Fibreglass towing eye tube
• Fibreglass sail batten for skeg chafe cap
• Alignment dowels for connective bulkheads
• Hull gasket material
• Watertight hatch kit for the foredeck
• Low profile G-10 daggerboard case cap kit with watertight gasket
• Laser cut leather chafe pads
• Sapele marine plywood aft seat
• Comprehensive building manual
• Free technical support from a competent builder

Sailing Components

We pre-assemble the mast and boom for the PT-11 with all the hardware, so it arrives ready to rig. The rig is extremely lightweight and quick to set up. The carbon fibre tubes contain foam buoyancy to prevent them being lost if they accidentally go overboard.

This package includes:

• Two-part carbon fibre mast
• Carbon fibre boom
• All hardware pre-installed
• Sail and sail bag
• Running rigging

Rudder and Daggerboard Kit

This option includes:

• Machined rudder blank
• Machined daggerboard blank
• Fibreglass for sheathing the foil blades
• Kick-up rudder assembly
• Pre-shaped tiller
• Hiking stick
• Stainless steel pintles and gudgeons
• Star knob
• Hardware and fasteners

The blanks for the rudder and daggerboard are CNC machined to a NACA foil section in high-strength birch plywood. Precisely machined foils really improve speed and upwind efficiency.

The tiller is tapered on three sides, shaped at both ends and drilled. The hiking stick has rounded ends and chamfered edges and is drilled for attachment.

Foils Carry Case

This custom made carry case holds your daggerboard and rudder in separate pockets to protect them during transport and storage. It is made of durable fabric that is breathable and dries quickly, to keep your foils in top condition. It is custom made to fit the PT 11 foils precisely. A flap with a velcro closure holds the foils securely and the bag also has a webbing carry handle.

Non-Marking Bumper

This custom extruded EPDM section has been designed specifically for the PT-11. It is light grey and has a non-marking composition, to avoid leaving ugly marks on the topsides of your mothership.

The bumper is in three pieces to fit the two sections of the nesting boat. The bumper wraps around the bows and the quarters to provide protection from any angle except where the rudder hangs.

The bumper comes with installation instructions. In addition, you will need a small tin of Hypalon glue (not included).

Non-Slip Flooring

This CNC cut foam decking provides a non-slip surface on the cockpit floor and also cushions your knees for comfort when assembling the two halves of the boat on the water. It is 5 mm thick and includes pre-cut pieces to fit the bottom panel and first side panel as well as the rowing seat and the aft thwart.

The flooring on the first side panels is not compatible with the hardwood footbrace blocks unless you cut the foam into short pieces that fit between them. However, most people find the flooring provides enough grip for rowing without the footbraces.

Please note that the foam decking we supply is black, not grey as shown in the photos.

Footbraces Kit

These footbraces are wooden blocks glued into the hull to brace your feet against when rowing. This kit includes eight pre-shaped sapele footbrace blocks, with bevelled ends and rounded edges. It also includes a template for positioning the footbraces in the boat. Installation instructions are in the builder's manual.

Gaco Rowlocks Set

This set includes a pair of low-friction snap-on rowlocks, two pairs of sockets and screws for mounting them in the rowlock risers (not included, see below).

Rowlock Risers Set

This set includes four hardwood riser blocks, pre-drilled and shaped to fit the Gaco rowlock sockets. They are needed to raise the rowlocks clear of the gunwales. These risers look handsome and avoid interfering with the nesting of the two halves of the boat.

Study manual

This is intended for pre-build study or to help with the decision to purchase. This is the comprehensive manual that accompanies the kit; reading it will help you decide whether or not you can build the boat. It describes all of the techniques that will be used during the build and also a step by step guide to construction. It contains a photograph or diagram of every step.

If, later, you decide to purchase the kit the cost of this will be deducted from the kit price.

The manual does not contain the cutting instructions so it is not possible to build the boat from scratch using only this.