We're delighted to have the PT 11 Nesting Dinghy as part of Chesapeake Light Craft's stable of sophisticated and capable small boats. The PT 11 is not a new design, having enjoyed a decade of very careful and incremental development by Russell and Ashlyn Brown of PT Watercraft, a boat-kit company in Port Townsend, Washington. Russell Brown is a wunderkind boatbuilder, designer, and sailor with an international reputation for highly polished and thoughtfully executed wooden boats. Thus, the world took notice when Russell and Ashlyn founded their company and released a nesting dinghy that was several orders of magnitude better than anything else available. Performance is revelatory under both oar and sail The team at PT Watercraft wants you to understand how special this design is. Thanks to an ingenious connective scheme, the two halves of the PT 11 can be rejoined to become a whole hull while they are in the water. In the Videos section below, you will find several videos produced by PT Watercraft that show how to join and separate the two halves of the boat, how to set up the boat for sailing, and how to recover from a capsize. Another video will show you that the PT11 tows very well (provided that the daggerboard-trunk cap is secured) even when traveling as fast as 15 knots. Russell Brown is a perfectionist. You can see that when you watch two videos he made to demonstrate the proper way to paint with two-part Perfection paint (from Interlux). You'll see a couple of videos from customers who were delighted with this gem. The PTWatercraft website includes more videos as well as descriptions, notes, blogs, and reviews about this design. Among the many blogs they have produced over the years, you may find these the most informative to help you determine whether the PT11 will be your next boat. These include: A brief guide to setting up and sailing your PT 11 PT 11 and PT SPEAR Sailing Guide Trouble Shooting and Maintenance Inside PT Watercraft Printable Instructions Page Other Information and Links The non-nesting version of the PT11, the PT Spear, is also available from CLC as a kit. Due to the sheer ingenuity of this design, PT Watercraft soon had as many orders for kits as they could handle. Looking to scale their business, in 2020 Russell and Ashlyn began working with John Harris and CLC to help with the manufacturing and distribution of the intricate--and intricately clever--PT 11 kit. (John and Russell last collaborated on Madness, John's 31-foot Pacific Proa.) CLC is now producing PT 11 kits and options. We note that all of the elegant custom kit components and hardware--part of the special sauce that elevates the PT 11 above nesting dinghies that came before--will continue to be manufactured by PT Watercraft in Port Townsend, Washington. Sailing component "kits" do not require any assembly; they arrive ready to rig right out of the box. The PT 11 is not for everyone. First, assembling a small wooden boat with this level of performance and sophistication requires a degree of patient craftsmanship and a willingness to pay attention to the details. And these details are lucidly and logically presented in the assembly manual included with the kit. Quick-and-dirty wood butchers aren't going to enjoy the process or reap the PT 11 design's potential. Second, a kit with the PT 11's level of detail is expensive. However, the feedback over the years is that the investment is worth every penny, both in gaining a home-built dinghy of peerless performance and in the (often startling) resale value of the finished product. Third, building a PT 11 is like taking a master class in epoxy skills. This is what one PT 11 builder wrote about the kit: I would like to reiterate one point as far as the value is concerned: I've yet to float in my boat, but I'm confident it will work as designed. The money spent was worth it, just to have "taken the class" on working with epoxy, and stitch-and-glue boatbuilding, getting a sweet boat at the end is, of course, a nice bonus. The manual describes such nuance of technique I feel like an expert, despite limited experience with epoxy and 'glass. That said by a working guy on a budget." ---A.S., a builder in Vermont Read featured articles about the PT Eleven Nesting Dinghy in Small Boats Nation: CLC Nesting Dinghy: PT11, a fine balance of form and function
