“She has to be able to carry a lot of cargo, row easily and be fun to sail, but still fit under the boom of our new boat. Maximum length, eight feet so she’ll fit between the mast and the companionway.” Those were the parameters we gave Lyle C. Hess when, during the final stage of designing our 29’9 cruising cutter, TALEISIN, he offered to include a new design for a tender. He would be killing two birds with one stone because another client had asked him to draw up a sailing dinghy to add to their lineup, which already included Hess’s 7-and 9-footers.
When Lyle showed us the plans for this new 8-footer, he explained, “I designed this dinghy along the lines of a Wherry – the little clinker boats that were used to carry passengers and cargo in the estuaries and rivers of England. They had to not only carry a good load but be stable so inexperienced passengers could easily step into them.”
Larry built the plug for this fiberglass clinker dinghy. In exchange for Larry’s labor, the Fatty Knees company gave us five bare hulls, one for our own use, one as a gift to my brother, the third to go into storage should we ever need to replace the first and the last two to fit out and sell.
It didn’t take us long to appreciate this sweet looking dinghy. Within a week of launcing TALEISIN, Larry rowed our Fatty Knees two miles to the head of Newport Bay then returned with 300 feet of new 3/8” diameter chain plus some groceries. With a 570 pound payload plus his own 180 pounds, the dinghy still had a safe amount of freeboard.
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charles peck says:
Gorgeous little lady, fits all my parameters as well except the cost part but does seems doable for a do it yourself type.
Thanks for this post.
Chris Powell says:
Is that Peter Oxborough on the helm in pic two?
Karl Bischoff says:
I used a Fatty Knees as a tender for decades. I bought it for the same reason… it fit between the mast and companionway on our Tayana37. It also acted as a rain hood for our leaky butterfly hatch :-) I always loved the way it rowed with a load and sailed even when completely full of water (positive floatation really works). For some reason ours weighed 77 pounds, easily carried around by one person hung from a shoulder.
Peter Beckett says:
For my wife and I the Fatty Knees proved the best dinghy we ever had. She was the perfect harbour boat to explore under oar or sail and matched our beloved Nor’Sea 27 COLD FEET for shape and size – no wonder as both boats were designed by Lyle Hess with his unerring eye for a good line. Rowing was a dream and as Lin writes above, the Fatty Knees can be a bit tender, requiring a reef we found a little earlier than 15 knots. It was nice to meet Lin and Larry when they paid a visit to our magnificent St. George’s Harbour, Bermuda, many years ago and local sailor Jill Outerbridge invited us all to a party in her delightful harbour side home.
Thomas Morgan says:
Best of all she is good looking
Robin Van Auken says:
Is a Fatty Knees a solid choice for dinghy cruising the intracoastal Waterway? A quest is calling. I’d like to see cruising suitability as a category in OCH’s Dinghy Guide.