NEW Dinghy Davits....

After many months of planning, we are now the proud owners of new Dinghy Davits...  First, some background.  We had some VERY heavy duty davits on Blowin Bubbles.  They were in place when we bought her in 2010.  During the 3 year refit, I replaced and beefed up the backing plates.

For the last three years they have served us very well.  With the purchase of our new (and heavier) dinghy, we decided it might be time to re-think the whole system.

When we were in Bora Bora we met up with our friend Andy, the editor of Latitude 38 magazine.  He was on board a bareboat charter catamaran.  When he went to put his dinghy away, he simply cliped it on and pushed a button, and away it went....  NICE....

So, they say the best ideas we ever have are the ones we steal, so I had a careful look at the system on his rental boat, and set about the task of re-deigning our system...

Jump ahead to November last year, when after 3 or  4 failed sketch ideas, we settled on a design that we thought might work.  With our sophisticated (sic) drawings in hand we approached a few fabricators here in New Zealand, only to find out that they were happy to make it, but the least expensive one was going to be around $3000!

Out of the question.... So not yet defeated, we went to our friends at Steel & Tube, and specced out the stainless and were surprised when it came to $220.  OK, maybe we might just pull this off.  We went next door to a place called Absolute Steel, where Simon and his wife Sue agreed to weld up our project at an hourly rate, which they though might end up being between $300-400...  AWESOME!

The catch was that they were overwhelmed with business before Christmas, so we agreed to wait until they came back from their shutdown.  Last Monday, they were back and built our unit first thing.  After a few consultations, and a few minor modifications, they completed the whole thing for $470 (including delivery)...

We had a few blocks kicking around and used two of them. We purchased an ATV 1500lb winch, which came with all the wiring and even a wireless remote control for $170.  Add to that a few bits and pieces, we bought at the swap meet in Opua for $20.

Total cost for the build:  $880 NZD! less the $350 I got for the old ones = $530 NZD!

I cut down the mounting plates from the old davit system and spent 5 hours drilling 4 holes to accommodate the 10" bolts that acts as the hinges for the whole thing.

We installed the 15hp engine on the new dinghy and now have everything tucked away nicely.

Fuel line off the floor and extra fuel filter installed....

Fuel Tank in bow, and locked under our new anchor/accessory bag.

This morning we did the big test and are thrilled that it worked flawlessly!

A FUN project....  More soon....