Dinghy cradle

[Marin]

A participant on the Grand Banks forum asked me for some photos of the cradle that holds the sailing dinghy on top of our aft cabin as he is planning doing something similar with his sailing dinghy.* So since I took the photos I thought I'd post them here, too, in the event that somone is contemplating a similar setup for their boat.

The cradles and the sailing dinghy were on the boat when we bought it.* The cradles are held to the cabin top by long bolts or threaded rod sections that appear in the aft cabin and aft head where they are clamped to the ceiling with teak blocks, washers, and acorn nuts.* We have never had the cradles off the boat so I don't know how the bolts or threaded rod is held to the cradles.

Some photos we were given that were taken of the boat prior to our getting it show the cradles finished bright, so I assume they are made of teak.* They had been painted white by the time we acquired it.

First photo is out the starboard aft window in the main cabin, fourth photo is of the overhead at the aft end of the aft cabin, fifth photo is of the attachment blocks in the aft head.

 

[markpierce]

The cradle looks functional/nice.*

*

 

[Marin]

I have no idea who designed, built, and installed it other than whoever it was was in your part of the world. The boat spent the first 25 years of its life in San Francisco Bay. When we bought it, it was berthed in Alameda with the name "Grand Destiny." The owner had just bought a GB46 and didn't want to own two boats so he told a broker to sell the GB36. The first thing the broker did before listing the boat was call the GB dealer in Bellingham/Seattle to see if they knew anyone who might be interested in buying an old GB36. About 15 minutes after that call and the arrival of the faxed specs, my wife and I walked in the door of the dealership to talk about GBs.

The boat has been documented from the start so somewhere we have a list of all the previous owners. The owner before the fellow we bought the boat from kept it in Sausalito and the boat was named "Christopher Robin," the lettering of which you can see when the light is just right on the slightly raised gelcoat on the transom where the letters used to be.

The dinghy is a Montgomery Model 7-11. From what I've been able to learn on the internet Montgomery is/was a very reputable manufacturer of small sailboats up to lengths in the mid-20s also based I think in the SFO bay area. It has to be launched and retrieved with the GB's mast an boom, a somewhat time-consuming process, but it's a wonderful little boat for one adult to sail. But its small size and "tippy" nature make it unsuitable for a utility shoreboat, hence the ugly but very stable Livingston we put on the swimstep.

As an aside, if money were no object, you should truck your boat to Puget Sound sometime for a year or two. In my opinion, you've got an ideal boat for a couple of people to explore this whole region from the San Juan Islands all the way up the Passage to SE Alaska, particularly with fuel prices going the direction they're going right now. I know you've covered some of that ground in cruise ships, but a boat like yours would be perfect for exploring all those bays and inlets and fjords and places the cruise ships can't get close to.