Arch Construction

A lot of other PDQ owners have asked about the arch we built on our 1994 PDQ 36. We built our arch in order to give us a place to put our 3 solar panels as well as to provide a better way to carry our dinghy.

The PDQ came with a pair of stainless swivel davits from the factory, but we constantly had trouble with them closing in towards each other any time the dinghy was loaded. This led to serious chafing on our inflatable , especially under way. The chafing got so bad it actually led to several holes in the port side of our Zodiac.

I requested and received several quotes from three professional fabricators to build us a large stainless arch on the back of Dream Catcher. The cheapest was $4200 and the most expensive was $6500. We decided that for that kind of money, I could afford to take a shot at it myself.

Weight carrying ability was never the problem with the factory davits as I had loaded my dinghy and engine into the davits and they held the approximately 300 pounds without any problem. Really my only beef with the davits was that they kept spinning in, so I decided to use them as the foundation for my arch and to make braces that would span across the distance to keep them stable.

I went to the local metal supply shop and inspected what was available. I should mention that I used aluminum for my fabrication because it was both cheaper and significantly lighter than stainless steel, but you could easily replicate my work with stainless if you so desired.

I started with two 10 foot lengths of 1.5" aluminum tubing that I bevel cut to fit between the two factory davits when they are parallel to each other. Actually I made them 1/2 inch shorter than that so that I could then weld 120 degrees of a small section of 3" aluminum pipe perpendicular to each end (4 pieces in total). The end pieces were sized properly so that they would lay flush against the existing 2" stainless used by PDQ in the original davits.

Those four pieces are the only welding that was required in the entire project. Everything else I made to bolt on in case I ever want to remove this structure for either maintenance or in the event of selling the boat.

The two welded "braces" were then bolted on each side with two, 2.5" stainless steel exhaust clamps. That's a total of 8 clamps, 2 for each end times 2 braces. Make sure you use a stainless product here as standard automotive clamps will rust in about 12 minutes when exposed to salt water.

I debated just drilling holes in the existing davit structure and through bolting the braces, but again I didn't want to mar any of the original design in case I some day needed to remove my work.

Once the structure was firmly bolted in place, I took 1/4 inch aluminum angle iron and cut runners to support each of my three solar panels. I then measured the distance between the two braces and proceeded to cut out semi circles on each runner at the two places where they lay across the braces.

Each runner got a 1/4 inch hole drilled exactly in the center of the semi circle and then each brace got tapped for a 1/4 inch bolt to thread in and secure the runner in position. Of course, you have to measure where you panels are going to go, but you get the idea. Also, make sure you round down the edges on the runners, otherwise you've got real sharp edges and an accident waiting to happen.

Once the runners were in place, it was just a matter of bolting the solar cells to the runners and hooking up the wires.

It took me 5 hours of work to get everything constructed and another 3 hours to get it all bolted together. Total cost of the project was 170 dollars. Of course if you can't weld aluminum (or steel), you might need to pay someone to make the four welds for you which would send the price up a little.

Ok, hope this helps. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.