Eastport Pram

Product Description

The Eastport Pram, with more than 800 built, is one of the most popular small dinghies.

I'm VERY pleased with the boat. The weather has not been brilliant but here are some shots. When I get some better ones of her I'll send them on.

S.L.

The Eastport Pram is pretty, light, tough, roomy, and easy to build. It is just 7′ 9″ long and 48″ wide, but will hold about 375 pounds. She's built from 6 mm okoume using the LapStitch method so that it resembles clinker. The finished boat looks like it was built by a seasoned craftsman, but it will take a novice only about 50 hours to assemble the Pram.

This boat is for people who want a light boat to take to different waters and to mess about in when on holiday. The Eastport Pram is so light it is very easily put on a roof rack. It is small enough to be carried whilst towing a caravan. Many people use inflatable boats to ferry goods and crew between the shore and their main boats. The problem with inflatable boats is that they are hard to row so inevitably noisy outboard motors are needed. The Eastport Pram is designed to overcome the problems and be light and easy to row.

Small tenders should be able to withstand heavy handling alongside the mothership or in the dinghy park. Planking is 6 mm okoume throughout, with three 9 mm frames and seats. There's a big, deep skeg for tracking under tow. In addition to multiple layers of fibreglass on the bottom panel, there are two cypress rubbing strips on the bottom to take the abrasion of dragging on a beach. For added safety, permanent flotation tanks are built in beneath the seats.

The Eastport Pram has a deep rocker for low wetted surface and to keep the transoms from dragging. The result is a boat that is as easy and satisfying to row as you can expect on such a short waterline. Used as a tender to a larger boat, or kept at a dock, it's possible to undertake a long afternoon row around the local waters without breaking a sweat.

The Eastport Pram is built using CLC's patented LapStitch™ joints which means that the result is a remarkably stiff and strong hull that has the appearance of traditional lapstrake or clinker planking.

This is Mark II of the Eastport Pram: the panels on this kit are pre-drilled and the bulkhead positions are pre-marked so that it is possible build the boat without having to measure for locations.

This pram would also make a great first boat-building project, a wonderful fishing boat for a small lake, or a child's first boat.

Nesting Eastport Pram

The Nesting Eastport Pram has the same hull shape as the standard Eastport Pram, but it is split into two sections so that the forward section can nest completely in the aft section for compact storage.

The Eastport Pram is 7′ 9″, which is pretty small, but still not compact enough for storing aboard the smaller classes of cruising yachts. The nesting Eastport Pram measures just 1.45 × 1.27 × 0.53 m (4′ 9″ × 4′ 2″ × 21″) when nested: small enough to stow on the deck of a cruising yacht down to pocket-cruiser size or in your shed or apartment.

We have kept all of the fun and function of the standard Eastport Pram, including the sailing rig, with no compromises. The nesting version is still just as easy to build and weighs the same as the standard version. Sailed and rowed against a standard Eastport Pram, it is just as fast.

At a casual pace, the nesting pram takes one minute and 20 seconds to assemble or disassemble. You'd need some sort of pyrotechnic device to inflate an inflatable dinghy that fast.

The Eastport Nesting Pram is built full-length and cut in half later, so that you don't end up with a kink at the joint in the boat. Even quite close up it is hard to discern that it's a nesting dinghy. At the joint are two very strong structural bulkheads. Six stainless steel bolts with large, easy-to-handle wing nuts fasten front and back together. The waterline is below the top of the bulkhead, so in theory it's impossible to ship water through the joint. Even so, a rubber gasket is included which truly seals the joint and helps protect the finish on the two parts.

The daggerboard case, for sailing, is included in the standard kit — sealed off, but ready to be opened if you decide to convert to sailing later.

The kits include:

• Pre-cut wooden panels with pre-cut joints
• Pre-drilled tie holes
• Panel location marks
• Epoxy resin
• Epoxy activator
• Epoxy fillers
• Woven glass fabric
• Woven glass tape
• Ties
• Hatch, seals and screws
• Comprehensive building manual
• Pair of silicon bronze rowlocks and sockets
• Free technical support from a competent builder
• With the nesting pram, nuts, bolts and a rubber gasket are included

What is in a boat kit.

Plans and Manual

The manuals are the ones that accompany the kits. They describe all of the techniques that will be used during the building and also a step by step guide to construction. Scale drawings are used throughout as well as photographs of critical jobs.

Using the plans of the panels with the cutting instructions it is possible to build the boat from scratch.

The plans for the standard Eastport Pram are currently only for the Mark I. The plans for the Nesting version are for the Mark II and contain full-size drawings for every part.

Wood

This option contains the pre-cut wooden components with pre-cut joints, plus the construction manual. It does not contain the plans (these are not required because the wood is pre-cut), any of the epoxy to glue and coat the boat, the fabric or tape nor any of the hardware.

Sailing Option

This option can be retrospectively fitted and it turns the Pram hull into an able sailing boat. The rig is easy to set up and handle, powerful for its size, and stows inside the hull when not in use.

With the optional sailing rig the pram makes a splendid sail trainer. Tiny responsive boats like this offer immediate feedback and give sailors tremendous confidence in their ability to predict how any boat will behave. It is often said that you will learn more about sailing in a few days in a dinghy than in years of ‘cruising’ in big boats. Many big boat sailors still get nervous sailing up to a dock or manoeuvring through a crowded harbour without an engine. These are the very skills that are improved in tiny boats. Of course, improving sailing skills is not the only reason to sail a dinghy; charging around in the Eastport Pram is simply fun. The Pram has been designed with a strengthened hull and longer skeg to make it ideal for towing as a tender.

The option includes:

• Mast
• Boom
• Yard
• Mast step
• Board
• Fittings
• Rudder
• Tiller

The sailing option does not include the sails or warp although we can supply them.