Tech Tip – A Dinghy Dolly
by Bill Whitney
I needed wheels to move my rather hefty Newman
dinghy from the storage area to the floating boat ramp. Instead of
fixed wheels I decided that a simple, removable wheeled fixture
that floats would be the best approach. The design goals were
these: support the dinghy, be easily removable, not corrode,
move smoothly over packed gravel and wood surfaces, and store
easily either in the dinghy or ashore. Rolling easily requires large
wide wheels. So the first stop was to Lowes and Home Depot to
find what they may have in largest plastic wheels that would
support the weight and have enough of a footprint to move over
the gravel surface at the boat yard and not sink. Lowes had the
best selection. There I found a pair of 8” diameter, 1” wide
plastic wheels with 3/8” axle holes that would do the job. At first
I thought it may take four wheels, two on each side, but with the
gravel surface two wheels provided enough surface area to
support the weight. Somewhere in the past I saw a dinghy that
had the wheels on hinged bracket permanently mounted on the
centerline of the transom. The centerline mounting I liked, but
not the hinged mount. Having sailed a lot of dinghies with
removable rudders the idea of mounting the wheels like a rudder
with pintles and gudgeons struck me as an idea that might work
and attaching a pair of gudgeons to the transom wouldn’t alter
the dinghy’s good looks. In the scrap pile I found a 24” X 3” X
%4” piece of hard pine that was longer that the transom was high
and set to work. The pictures below show the results.
Ht: = j
I wanted to be able to mount the wheels so they would
function with the dinghy right side up or inverted which is her
winter storage position. The pintle/gudgeon configuration works
well but I found that a horizontal cross brace was needed to keep
the wheels from turning if you had to push the boat backwards.
The axle is a piece of 3/8” bronze rod that has bronze pins and
washers holding the wheels in position. The wheel assembly
floats upright and stores nicely in the bottom of the dinghy.
When the dinghy hits the water all you need to do is wiggle the
wheel assembly and push down. There has never been an
outboard motor on the boat (I prefer rowing!) but think that the
upper gudgeon would not interfere with one. This design works
well for me and doesn’t detract from the classic lines of the
dinghy. It’s hard to pin down a cost for the assembly since most
of the pieces were left over from past projects, but my best guess
would be less than $50.
