New Folding Tender Design

[ConcertinaBoats]

Hi all,
For my school technolgy A-Level project I designed and built a folding tender (named the concertina due to the way it folds).

As it was my first boat design, and I had to build it at school, I kept the design simple yet it rowed beautifully and and folds quicker and flatter than many other folding tender designs.

I have put some photos and more information about the design on a website http://www.concertinaboats.com
I would love to hear your opinions on the design.

[Thorne]

Looks interesting -- the perfect tender for the PDR fleet! (grin)

Don't know if I'd say it is "easy to row" -- it may be rowed, but anything with that size transom (front and back) in the water will be harder to row than a boat with the transom(s) out of the water (like a Norwegian pram style).
http://concertina.merryflame.co.uk/index_files/image3301.jpg

A folding Micro pram -
http://www.microcruising.com/graphics/fold2.jpg
http://www.microcruising.com/ding1.htm

Here's the Barquito folding dinghy -
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/07/projects/barquito/Barquito_On_Water-2.jpg
http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/07/projects/barquito/index.htm

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

It reminds me quite strongly of the Prout folding dinghies of my youth - right down to the colour of the fabric!

However, they had a single centreline structure, whereas yours is double, and had slat floorboards.

[ConcertinaBoats]

Looks interesting -- the perfect tender for the PDR fleet! (grin)

Don't know if I'd say it is "easy to row" -- it may be rowed, but anything with that size transom (front and back) in the water will be harder to row than a boat with the transom(s) out of the water (like a Norwegian pram style).

I was expecting the flattish front to make it heavy to row but as it is so broad it has plenty of bouyancy, around 500kg. This means it sits high in the water and actually rows quite smoothly.

[ConcertinaBoats]

I have now put together a video of it in use.
Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da7OzZOYBKk

[htom]

Interesting. I think you'll find it a better boat if you work some rocker into it. Such panels can be folded if they have matching curves.