How do you outfit your dinghy?

[Entlie]

Sunspot Baby has a new dinghy. It's a West Marine 310 Rib. We have had AMIs for several years, with flat floors and lots of room. This one is much narrower, with a deep vee and our big marine cooler can no longer double as a bench/lazarette.

Interested to hear how folks with a similar dinghy have set up to store life jackets, anchor, limited tools, lights, dog toys, etc.

Thanks!

Entlie
Sailing Catamaran Sunspot Baby

[jeremiason]

Most cruisers south of the border make or have made Sunbrella Chaps made for the dinghys to extend the tube life and protect them. Many make fish net bags with zippers and sew them to the chaps on the inside of the raft or hang one under the seat.... Others just drop one or two plastic milk crates on the floor.

You didn't say what your intended use is, so here is what we carry, but again we are fulltime cruisers.

Small folding anchor with 15 feet of chain and 50 feet of line for snorkeling or anchoring on the beach.

Water proof flashlight.

Cable lock with 20 feet of cable (Lifeline with splices on the ends)

Hand bildge pump

When we were in the US, we also carried lifejackets and suction cup running lights, but since we don't have much supervision down here.... They stay on the sailboat most of the time.

[jcapo]

We had a serious lower plug fouling problem on a 14 year old 15HP Nissan last year in the Bahamas so we stated carrying spare plugs and a plug wrench. After several carb cleanings and two carb rebuilds, a new carb finally fixed the problem.

Now in addition to lights, jackets, anchor, etc., we always carry a plug, wrenches, screwdrivers, and a cord for emergency flywheel starting in a small waterproof plastic case.

[landonshaw]

In the south we carry a chain and anchor for snorkeling, small pump, engine oil. as said earlier, no rules so no life jackets or lights. Oh yes an empty plastic yogurt container to get the water out from all the rain.

[forsailbyowner]

Oars securely tied to the boat on lanyards bailer, anchor with 100' of line. throwable, pfds for 3 screwdriver gas can. Ive found its best to put everything on a lanyard after having it wash over a time or two when storms fil the dinghy then waves break over it at anchor.Have a canvas bag on lanyard to store ground tackle andstuff hat doesnt get used much. I consider ground tackle important safety gear sometimes you need to keep boat from drifting where you dont want to be when the engine quits and you need time to work on it.

[ausaviator]

Hand bilge pump = small bucket

[swisscraft]

Given the fact that we have to tow up the dink sometimes on not so secure spots we have two cheap sportbags: One with the Dink Anchor the other with all the other stuff mentioned before.

We just take with us whats appropriate (nothing for a 300 ft run a shore if we could row back in worse case). The bags are stored in the big boats locker, but are handy when needed. And if you "travel" with the bags you still can take them with you after landing....

The benefits are obvious: Dirt cheap, all the stuff with you with one grab and safe. Additional we keep weight out the dink when it hangs on the davits.
Yes we may need to replace the bags every two years or so...

[Bash]

Goodness. The first thing I add to a dink are the beer holders.

[mrohr]

O.K. i v'e a small roll up ding(y 9.5 ft.) but if you like to drift fish, you should consider a small drogue to be deployed when the breezes are moving you along too fast or when your motor is slow to start and the wind is driving you rapidily off shore.
Ask me how i figured this out.

[swisscraft]

Originally Posted by Bash

Goodness. The first thing I add to a dink are the beer holders.

Oh my God! Are there still models sold without them????

[svjustus]

In our dink , we carry a waterproof kit with screwdriver, pliers, cord, extra spark plug, copy of passport, etc. The most important thing tho, is a 1 gallon mix of rum & whatever.... oh, also have oars.

[Entlie]

Does anyone have a narrow deep vee rib like our new one? We are interested in where you put things. On our AMI, almost everything went into a marine cooler that doubled as a bench. Not possible here. Our 6 gal. fuel tank will take up most of the stern, not sure if we can stow the anchor in a bucket back there. Swisscraft, your idea of sportbags is good.

[Katiusha]

We kept all the stuff in a dinghy bag under the seat - it had a part that went over the seat to keep the bag in place and make sitting more comfortable. Highly recommend it.

Items in the bag:
Anchor, chain, rode
Lifejackets
Flares
PVC repair kit
Multitool
Spark plugs
Hand water pump
Foldable bucket
Nav light
Torch
Floating rope
Energy bars
Foldable dinghy ladder

...yep, it all fit.

Whenever we're in the dinghy, we would also bring handheld VHF.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Entlie

Does anyone have a narrow deep vee rib like our new one? We are interested in where you put things. On our AMI, almost everything went into a marine cooler that doubled as a bench. Not possible here. Our 6 gal. fuel tank will take up most of the stern, not sure if we can stow the anchor in a bucket back there. Swisscraft, your idea of sportbags is good.

Our dinghy is a RIB like yours is, but a little bigger -- an Avon 340. It has a center console and wheel steering. I don't know if this will fit in yours, but if it can -- it is brilliant. It makes it vastly more comfortable to operate the dink, and a bunch of storage space appears under the seat. It makes all the difference in being able to roam far and wide in the dink, and getting tired just going between the boat and shore, craning your neck to see where you're going. Highly recommended.

Our dink also has a bow compartment which functions as a seat -- so storage space here is also created basically from nothing. You might try to find something like that which can be retrofitted. If not, I have seen soft bags which attach inside the forepeak, which would give you the storage space but without the seat.

What we carry in the dink:

Oars
Bailer
Oil, measuring cup
Grapnel anchor with 30 meters of rode.
A warp (I like to tie up the dink with two lines when possible, not just the painter).
A lock.
A handheld VHF radio.
Beer.

What I plan to add:

Navigation lights of some kind; maybe suction cup battery powered ones, maybe hard-wired ones.

Cheap chart plotter/fish finder

Compass


Because it is so comfortable to steer, we use our present dink in a completely different way than the previous one. I take fairly long trips in it, including open water in reasonably calm conditions (crossed the Solent six times, once at night, for example). Because it cruises at 20 knots, it is much faster and easier to go somewhere relatively close in the dink than in the mother ship. I like to explore rivers in it, and have taken some quite long river trips in it (all the way up to Wareham from Poole, for example). And it opens up anchorages which would be too far away to get back and forth from in the old dink -- for example, a couple of weeks ago we spent four nights in St. Aubin's Bay on Jersey, and easily shuttled back and forth to St. Helier, although it was a trip of a few miles. That saved a lot of money in berthing, and the big empty bay was a really pleasant place.

YMMV.

[Dockhead]

Oh, one other thing -- in Jersey, I added those hydrodynamic wings to the dinghy motor. It produced an unbelievable transformation in performance -- simply amazing. The dinghy now planes at a much lower RPM than before, and makes an almost seamless transition to planing. Before, I could motor at either 4 knots and under, or 10 knots and over, with full throttle required to get over the hump. A real PITA in rivers and harbors with a 6 knot speed limit. I haven't measured the fuel consumption yet, but by the feel of it I will be saving a ton of fuel, too. Highly recommended.