Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Friday 13 March 2020

Building an outboard engine stand

So, after some thought and a look at available budget, (which by the way, was ZERO according to the boss SWMBO), I've gone for the one on castors.

Why? Because I actually have the timber, castors and screws required - so the cost will be, wait for it.......ZERO....thus I should gain 'brownie points' with the boss.


There were also some plans available on the internet similar to this picture below. I needed to do a little fiddling around with them and I will put an updated version of these plans on the blog in the next day or two.

So a pleasant afternoon has been spent with chop saw cutting the timber to the correct dimensions. There were some awkward angles to cut and two cuts had to be done by hand as faithful chop saw couldn't do them.

I've managed to build the back engine support so far.  Next will be the mounting of this on the base frame and the adding diagonal supports and castor wheels.

Mine will look something like this one

It is based on the plans below but these need some altering



The above plans are good but there are odd measurements missing as far as I can work out


The timber - 2" x 4" 

A pile of cut pieces building up 

The uprights double pieces for strength and support

The engine upright support has a lean of 8 degrees off the vertical

As always, I've deviated from the plans - never learning the lesson from any previous disaster - here I've added an extra cross plank at the top where the outboard bracket will rest and tighten up on



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