Dinghy Sailing - Fatty Knees

Its a good idea to have a small sailboat while building a Wylo 2 yacht,  just so the sights smells and sounds of the marine don't fade from memory. Visits to the beach with the family are always great but its always nice to haul in the sheet feel the wind heel the boat and you have actually crossed over from the land to the water.

The Fatty Knees 8' dinghy is a great sail and row boat. At 2.4 m overall length it's primary purpose is to be a safe, seaworthy and nice classical looking yacht tender. The first ones were designed and built in Long Beach California by Lyle Hess just after world war II. They are built in fiberglass and traditionally fitted out. Cruising authors Lin and Larry Pardey have built and owned two engineless Hess designed wooden yachts then cruised the world in them. The Pardeys tender of choice for their voyages was the Fatty Knees. The Fatty knees moulds were bought by boat building firm Eddy and Duff who produced most of the Fatty knees in existence, Eddy and Duff closed shop in 2009, but the design was revived in the form of the  Fatty Knees boat co, Sagmore beach, Massachusetts. The company also has a social site with much info about the dinghy.

I saw a Fatty Knees 8 for sale on gumtree, a local internet sales site, it took me a few weeks to get to see the dinghy but it wasn't long after that we were towing her home.

 We named her "Jai Dee", The dinghy had traveled the south Pacific Islands and NZ on a yacht, finally the yacht owner decided an inflatable tender was easier to lift on deck so he sold it to a young South Townsville sailor who moved away, so we were lucky to be there at the time he sold her.

Fatty Knees off  Palleranda beach, Townsville, North Queensland.

The clinker style fibreglass hull is strong and unstayed cat boat rig gives more room inside.

A few things needed fixing first. The trailer had to have rust removed, converted and primed. Also the trailer lights needed a new connection fitting to match the cars one. Then the trailer needed Queensland registration to complete the legalities. On the dinghy, anchoring gear was added - a 4 kg folding anchor, light chain, 18m of light warp and a 6" cleat.  Some gear like V-sheet and life jackets increased safety and a small fold down compass helps if the wind shifts when tacking upwind.

We first launched at Barnacle st public boat ramp in Ross River. There are 4 ramp lanes and floating pontoons to tie up on. Its a nice and calm stretch of water. About 2 kms of sheltered esturine riverway. Along the north side of Ross river are marine installations and the south side has mangroves and some pile moorings for boats less than 6 m height. It's a great place to get the feel for it, though we were always keeping and eye and ear out for potential crocodiles, none were reported.

Old Barnicle st boat ramp, Railway Estate, Townsville

Palleranda beach  is good for dinghy sailing, kiteboarding and seakayaking. It's about 5km north of the strand beach in Townsville. It's a national park area so there is only a small urban area surrounded by alot of nature.

The is a 4WD trailer ramp at Palleranda. It suits lightweight small craft up to about 4m (16ft). Its a gently sloping concrete block ramp, but the area is exposed and can get a rough shore break if the wind is fresh. There is no break-wall and beach sand often accumulates on the ramp , the concrete part also extends down 1/2 tide, at low tide a very gentle sand flat continues out about 30m past the end of ramp.

Small lightweight dinghys and catamarans with 2 wheel drive tow cars can still use the ramp, but if the tides out and the if sand cover is up, the trailer needs to be uncoupled from the car and rolled out over the sand. The sand is moderately soft over the ramp but quite firm further down. Small beach craft are usually slid off their trailers onto the sand near the waters edge then the trailer rolled back up above the high tide mark.

Its a fair weather and fair tide ramp, both need to be checked. (If its not good then i go back to the sheltered ramps in Townsville or give boating a miss that weekend). The council sometimes scrapes the sand off with a bob-cat, but it soon returns.

Palleranda is good for a Fatty knees 8 sailing solo. The boat is small and light enough to launch alone. One retrieval its a bit more effort to go back uphill and easy if people are about.

 Sailing up to 1-2km off shore and 3-4 km along the beach feels pretty safe. The fatty knees is remarkably buoyant dinghy , it bobs over virtually any chop combination with just the occasional windward bow spray. It is very stable, never looked like putting the gunwale under. 

Love the un-stayed Cat boat rig. The mast is stepped right in the bow and the main-sheet is at the transom, so nearly the entire 8 ft hull effectively becomes the cockpit area (an amazing use of available space) It is a simple rig, far more common in North America than Australia where they are quite a rarity. (Read that during the US war of Independence with Great Britain, the US supply of rigging wire was cut off by the Brits, so they soon developed unstayed masts and rigs in response. Necessity is often the mother of invention.)

I've kept increasing the range of each sailing trip slowly in different conditions. It's safe up to about 15 knots and can handle 20 knot as wind is easily spilled from the sail. 

I gave the boat a  capsize test, in good conditions at least the dinghy can be easily righted and bailed out.

In general "JaiDee" with the present rig is great in partially sheltered waters and along the beach. It's ease and short time to launch and rig up often make it a first choice when the weather/location is right. The winds have to be light to moderate (0 -15 knots).

The main-sail on my early version rig can't be lowered by halyard. It also can't be reefed-down for 20 knots plus. So this is a limitation of the design and rig.

 9/10/20 update: I've not capsized once in 49 sails, but on one trip the wind blew up over 25 knots.  To handle this I pulled the mast/sail out of its step, laid it flat, furled it and rowed back (downwind)

Sailing JaiDee at Cape Palleranda

Later more modern versions of the Fatty knees rig have addressed the strong winds issue. They have tracked mast with a halyard. so the sail can be lowered (or reefed down) in a blow.

For more details of our Fatty knees dinghy check out these posts,

Dinghy for wylo (Fatty Knees) ,
Fatty Knees sail on Ross River
Rigging Fatty knees 8