Snap Davits

As we have now purchased a more suitable dinghy for Naughty-Cal we need to think about mounting it to the stern of the boat for our journeys further afield. The dinghy will be useful for exploring smaller waterways, creeks and ditches than Naughty-Cal is too large or deep drafted to navigate herself.

The only real choice we have are stainless steel snap davits due to Naughty-Cal’s smaller proportions. These are small brackets that bolt to the bathing platform and you then attach pads and hinges to the dinghy to snap onto the davits hinging it skywards from the bottom. A pair of standoff arms then hold the dinghy at 90 degrees to the boats transom, to still allow easy access to the boat and to also hold the dinghy safely at high speed. This will be vital for us as the dinghy is as wide as the boat!

As a stroke of luck the chandlers we bought our old dinghy from have taken it back in return for a set of snap davits and stand off arms for the new dinghy. Not a bad deal considering the davits and arms are almost £350 ordinarily.

We want to take the dinghy on our Easter cruise up the Trent so will have to work hard this coming weekend to ensure that the davits are installed in time. We scoped out the plan last weekend and will remove the rear bathing platform grab rail then utilising the mounting points for the rail to fit the snap davits to the transom. This will involve a bit of a squeeze into the engine bay forcing yourself around the engine before hopefully successfully extracting oneself in one piece. It should be an interesting job to complete.

Next up is mounting the outboard bracket. That will also be an interesting job!!