The Boatbreakers team were out on the road again to scrap two old dinghies. This time the dinghies were in a sailing club on a reservoir in Gloucestershire. The owner of the dinghies had both boats stored at the club for a number of years. However both boat’s conditions had deteriorated over the last few years.

With Covid and having a young Grandchild to contend with the owner decided that it was time to scrap the dinghies. Whilst the storage fees for the boats was minimal it made no sense to keep them. In the past he had tried to sell the dinghies but with no luck.

The smaller of the two dinghies was definitely well beyond economical repair. One of the first things our collection team did was to cut down the mast and rigging.

Our plan was to load the two dinghies on top of each other in our box trailer. We did expect the owner to want to keep the trailers but those too ended up being stacked on top. Hopefully some of our Boat Scrapyard Facebook Group members will be interested in buying one of the trailers. The Boatbreakers team always look to recycle items like trailers as to buy new is so expensive.

Once we had the first of the dinghies up on the trailer we were confident our dinghy sandwich would fit. When we tried to lift the second dinghy up in to position it basically fell to bits. We always make sure that we leave the area we have been working in a clean and tidy state. After five minutes we had most of the wood chippings or bolts that had fallen out of the smaller craft.

With the dinghy sandwich completed by using an upturned trailer it was time to strap it all down. The aim of the game it to make sure the load is all safe and secure. We definitely don’t want a dinghy wiggling its way out of the tightened straps on the motorway.

Everything is always triple checked before we set off. Once we get a mile or so down the road we will always stop to check that nothing has unexpectedly moved. Thankfully the hulls made it back safely to Portsmouth ready to be stripped down and crushed.