How about a real boat for a dinghy? Where do we put it? Looks too big for the foredeck. Let's see if we can make it work! Sure is pretty. The varnished gunwales are gorgeous but the utilitarian vinyl ones make more sense for us.

So, Dave Robertson, owner of Gig Harbor Boatworks offered to meet us with a similar boat and see how it might work out on our foredeck. The view from the cockpit is acceptable. That's a good start.

We all wanted it to work. When we had to mash it against the mast and move the spinnaker pole, I knew it wasn't going to work.

We had to offset the bow to clear the inner forestay attachment and the anchor locker. Another non-starter.

Then we started talking about other options. Dave and his company had nested lots of ten footers but not a Point Defiance 12. Suddenly Dave got excited about the new challenge. We made a lot of measurements and talked several options, eventually settling on cutting off about 18" from the bow. That let us give the spinnaker pole and the inner forestay some room to work. I can't imagine trying to do this without having the sample boat to judge by.

This kind of custom work doesn't come free, but I think the extra cost was reasonable. We ordered the FRP/Kevlar version and we had an extra layer of reinforcing near the gunwales. Once it was molded and complete, they sawed it in two (very carefully!) and added the mating bulkheads. Yikes! You only get one try to get that right!