Putting Boatnumberplates.com on our dinghy....

We bought a dinghy a while back for the S/V NiSe, and carried it with us as we moved on to the CarolMarie.   The dinghy is an inflatable Compact RIB-310 made from PVC material, and branded by WestMarine.  The dinghy has severed us well over the last couple of years.  The only problem with the inflatable dinghies is the ability to put the state registration numbers on them.   I first tried the Hardline Products 3" vinyl registration letters and numbers from WestMarine.  They didn't stay on through the season.  The following year a friend gave me a set of boards for the registration numbers that he made from a polycarbonate sign.  He had fastened strings through them to tie them onto the sides of the dinghy.  I bought a new set of vinyl letters and applied them to the sign.  It didn't take long (2 times out with the dinghy on 4th of July 2013) before the broke in half.

So when the time came around this December to register the dinghy again I took a trip to WestMarine to pick up the Boatnumberplates.com coupon.  The coupon gives you a special number to log onto the website to order the product.  I had selected a couple of upgrades once on the website including high end adhesive and the plates with the boats name on them.  The coupon is shown below.

I ordered it all last week, then went to Toronto on business.  When I came back waiting at the door, was the name plates.

The instructions were very clear and easy to follow, coiled up with the name plates in the box.  We first laid out the plates upside down with coffee mugs on them to weigh them down.  Since they were shipped in a box there were coiled up and needed to be flattened out again.

Once they were flatten out the hard part came next.  The dinghy had been on the boat for the last 20 months or so.  We'd kept it clean and covered, but the instructions said to apply the plates at least 65oF or above out of direct sunlight.   In Oregon keeping out of direct sunlight is easy enough because of all the rain, but getting it to be 65oF in February is another matter all together.  We went down in the sleet and freezing rain to pull the dinghy home.  We washed it under the carport, and let it dry in the garage.  Once dried we brought it into the spare bedroom deflated and reflated it.

You can tell a true sailor by what he uses the spare room for; can't you?

Once inflated we let the dinghy come up to room temperature over night.  With the thermostat right outside the spare bedroom door we knew the room temperature to be 70oF.

The next step was to clean the application areas with acetone. We used make up pads to apply the acetone in order to control where it was to be applied precisely.  We didn't want the acetone to get near the glued sections of the tubes.  We let the acetone evaporate for 10 minutes before proceeding.

The next step was to pull off the top of the backing off the name plate.

Then we positioned the name plate in the right area, then removed the second half of the backing material.

Smoothing out all the bubbles, was the second to the last step in the process.  The name plates quickly adhered to the PVC tubes of the dinghy, and don't allow for much working time to position them.  They conformed very well to the curvature of the tubes and stuck solidly on to the surface.

The final step was in the application of the registration sticker from the state.

Once we were done it dawned on me that I didn't follow the instructions exactly.  The registration sticker should be to the inward side of the dinghy, not forward as shown.

The Boatnumberplates.com products were easy to apply.  My wife and I actually had a fun morning do it this weekend.  The dinghy now is also associated with the boat, which I hear in Mexico is a good thing.  Many dinghies I hear are stolen there and having your name of the dinghy helps identifying it later.