Welcome to Nestaway Boats. We make sectional nesting dinghies and boats designed to stow away conveniently, assemble quickly, and row beautifully - with the option to motor or sail. A nesting dinghy or sectional boat is just like a normal boat - but made in two or more sections that fit inside each other for storage and transport, so they will fit on the deck of your boat, in the corner of a garage/shed/ beach hut, a pickup truck, or the back of a large car. Assembled, they are just like "normal" dinghies. Nested, they fit in a much smaller space: slightly more than half their assembled length. We currently have three designs, with prices starting from £1,150 (glassfibre Stem Dinghy).

This is our two-part nesting pram dinghy, available with a choice of cold-moulded mahogany hull (above, nested, standing on end) or glassfibre hull (right, with sailing rig). To assemble, all you do is hook the bow section onto the stern, and twist the connecting bolts into the threaded plates. It's perfectly possible on your own, and easy with two. This dinghy is stable, dry, easy to row, and takes up to three adults. The optional sailing rig is a boomless sprit (nothing to hit your head on!). She can of course be fitted with a small petrol or electric outboard - the bracket is offset to port so you can keep the rudder on too. Click here (Pram Dinghy) for more information.

And shown above is our 7'10" stem dinghy (nested). This one has a stowed footprint of just 4ft square. She has a very elegant shape and rows even better than the pram, going along at a cracking speed with surprisingly little effort. If you haven't tried rowing this sort of dinghy it will be a revelation; in fact you'll start wondering why you'd need an outboard at all - for most journeys you'd probably find the row ashore would take less time than fitting the engine! The two sections can be hooked together and the bolts done up in less than a minute. Everyone who sees it loves the look of this boat: it's not as stable or capacious as the pram but as a 1-2 person dinghy for a small yacht it's perfect... and on larger yachts it would make a brilliant second tender for when the crew have different shoregoing requirements. It can stand upright too: in the back of a camper van perhaps, or even the bathing platform of a motor cruiser. Click here (Stem Dinghy) for more information.

The third model in the Nestaway range is our brand new, 14ft, Trio multi-purpose-boat, which splits into three nesting sections that will fit in the back of an estate car - no trailer or roofrack required - and can be sailed, rowed or motored. Production models of this boat will be available from early August, with the first glassfibre hull undergoing trials now. She's very easily-driven, achieving 6knots with an 800W electric motor (Torqeedo 801), 9.5knots with a 2kW electric motor (Torqeedo Cruise 2.0), and 12.5knots with a Mariner 3.5hp petrol motor. She rows nicely too, and there will be an optional sailing rig, much like that on our Pram Dinghy. Click here (14ft Trio) for more information

What's wrong with inflatables?
The most obvious problem is that they are the shape you can make from blowing air into a rubber tube. This is very different from the shape that is most suitable (and energy efficient) for rowing and sailing. So you virtually have to use them with an outboard. And of course they take ages to blow up, are vulnerable to damage (some people call them "deflatables"!) and theft, and are not very pretty. Click here (What's Wrong With Inflatables?) for more pictures and information.

In contrast, a Nestaway nesting, sectional or takeapart dinghy:
- ROWS WITH SUCH EASE that most of the time you just won't bother with an outboard. Rowing is good for you, and the environment... but if you do put a small engine on the transom, for longer journeys perhaps, the easily driven hull will go faster and further on the same amount of fuel.
- ASSEMBLES QUICKLY & EASILY, with the only loose components being the (easy to replace) bolts. Contrast this with blowing up an inflatable or assembling a folding boat...
- TOWS LIKE A DREAM when you can't be bothered to bring it up on deck
- SAILS with the optional rig... perfect for exploring that idyllic anchorage
- LOOKS STUNNING, far more "boaty" than a floppy inflatable or a boxy fold-up. You will feel proud at the dinghy dock, and probably be inundated with questions about your beautiful boat (please tell them where you got it!)
- STOWS IN A SMALLER SPACE than any same-size hard dinghy, and not much more than a deflated inflatable with a hard floor.

How did it all start?
We lived on board our yacht in the Caribbean for two years - the dinghy was equivalent to a car. It was used, hard, every day: carrying water, going to the shops, going to the bar, visiting other yachts, setting anchors, going snorkelling... and during that time we got through three inflatables. The first simply wore out and disintegrated in the sun. The second was stolen when it was very new (in many parts of the world an inflatable is like hard currency). And the third survived but is heavily patched. At one point we drowned our outboard and had to row our inflatable until we could find a replacement. It was hard work and far from pleasant, especially as we watched half our rowing energy being absorbed by the flexing of the rubber tubes.

"There must be a better solution", we thought - and that's when we started considering sectional nesting dinghies. We saw the odd one, and found plans for DIY building, but that nobody actually made them to buy. That's why we do!

There's lots more information on the other pages of this site, or contact us now:

By email - mail@nestawayboats.com

By phone - 01202 423094 (sometimes on answerphone) or 07768 600595 (direct to Ian Thomson, our managing director)

Nestaway Boats is a limited company, established 2007.