alt.dinghy: A place to talk about choices beyond RIBs

[SV Jabberwock]

My dinghy is a 9 foot Tinker Tramp that was probably built some time in the 80s? The Hypalon is still going strong. It's closer to those cat dinghies (takacat etc) than a rib or classic inflatable. With just the two side tubes being inflated (I like the fact that each has an inner and outer tube to inflate) and no inflated bow. Makes it a bit more wet in a chop and makes exiting / entering across the bow a bit exciting.
Sails quite well too with main and jib, even upwind.

Why? I was looking for anything used made from hypalon (or its successors). And I liked the idea of being able to go dinghy sailing through an anchorage.
Small, new non-RIB hypalon dinks were hard to find and even harder to acquire last year. Was often told "you can buy new and maybe in six months we'll have something".

I'm quite happy with it. Easy and quick to set up and pack away. Fairly light considering it is made from.hypalon attached to a roll-up wooden floor.

[ChrisPuget]

I tow both an old 11 ft AB RIB with a 15hp outboard and an 8 ft Walker Bay rowboat. Both were purchased on Craigs List. I use the RIB for fishing and getting supplies and sometimes fuel. The Walker Bay is used for barnacle encrusted landings and short hops at an achorage. Both tow extremely well. The RIB is pulled in and tied off across the stern when pulling into a marina.

[rls8r]

I carry two dinghies.

I carry a Dyer "midget" sailing dinghy on the foredeck (when not being towed). The foredeck has several "blocks" into which the bow and transom fit (see photo - and yes, I know I have some cleaning to do!). I generally use the Dyer when the winds are favorable for dinghy sailing, I don't have very far to go, I don't have much to carry, or I plan to run it up on the beach (or somewhere that may poke a hole in my inflatable). I can row it or put a small outboard on it if I don't want to sail. I'll sometimes get curious looks when I sail into a place, and then drop the dinghy in the water and sail away from my boat.

I also carry a Sport Boat "White Marlin" 9' 8" inflatable (inflatable floor) dinghy that folds up and either lives in the lazarette or on top of the life raft (under the Dyer) when not being towed. I use it when I have farther to travel or more things to transport - and I can tie it to a dinghy dock. It's a bit lighter than the Dyer and more stable (what isn't?). My wife prefers the Sport Boat because the Dyer is "too tippy."

[Bug Light]

Sea Eagle 10’6” Sport Runabout ALL inflatable.
Easy to store on deck and tows really well. Killed ours after 7 hard use years but she served us well as an easy to handle tender.
They have an inflated keel that lets the boat plane and maneuver very easily. Would have replaced it with the same but for one reason- does not have lifting points for davits.

[Klaartu]

I’m quite disappointed that Walker Bay discontinued their 8ft & 10ft plastic boats.

They could take an outboard, they came with a full sailing rig, they had detachable inflatable options around the sides turning it into a rib.
You could hit them with a sledgehammer and they wouldnt break.
The 10ft version was a tad too big so I bought a used 8ft version. My grandkids sail it.
Marvellous dinghies such a shame the stopped making them because now I need to replace the inflatable tubes and they can’t be bought.

[hpeer]

Yes, how we art our dink needs to enter into the conversation. Towing is fine for sheltered waters, as are David's. But when heading off shore we need to bring the dink aboard somehow.

The PB knocks down to about SUP size, the seats and transom are a PITA.

THE PB tows well PROVIDED you tow it so that the bow is lifted up, right up against the transom.. RIBs generally have a very low bow fitting for towing, the PB fitting is grommets much higher up. Towing with any length of rope and the PB can submerg, exciting.

Towed correctly they are fine. Or could be lifted into "davits" (GD Spiel check)

[Mike OReilly]

I learned early on to avoid towing any dinghy. I never do it now, except over very short distances, and in conditions guaranteed to be benign; IOW, rarely.

This is one of the attractive features of the Portabote. It only takes a few minutes to tear down and store securely on deck. I'm lucky with my current boat in that I can store both the boat and seats/transom securely on deck.

[OldManMirage]

Yeah, I'm pretty happy to have had the good fortune to come across a Walker Bay 8 with a complete sailing rig, including the rudder and daggerboard. I only $400 for it !

I'm rigging up a 3-point harness to let me lift it on deck with a 2-1 block and tackle I'll rig to the mast.

When I get it all sorted out it I'll put a video together and post a link.

But they are definitely pretty indestructible. I also have a 2hp Suckzuki for it, so I can motor, row or sail.

I may be slow but I'll get there eventually !!

[Benz]

When I designed the cabin and deck of my Cape George 31, I made space for a 9' hard dinghy aft of the mast. Then I built a plug for the dinghy, pulled a mold from it, and made a vinylester/glass sailing and rowing dinghy. I made the bows pretty bluff, so it's buoyant enough forward I can stand on the little foredeck and "front-scull" as I call it, either with boat empty or full of cargo.
It's easy enough to scramble in over the transom, and five of us packed in there with laundry and groceries while we lived aboard full-time for five years.
It got smashed by a drug-running panga howling through an anchorage in Honduras in the dead of night, and though we patched it up, it was never the same: heavier, not so pretty.
Eventually, (I'd always wanted a lighter-weight dinghy), I had the opportunity to fair the dinghy, add some features, and pull a mold off of it. Then I built a vacuum-bagged carbon/kevlar/ epoxy dinghy, which is essentially identical, but weighs at least 1/3 less. That's been going for years now, and though my oldest daugher is 19, we still pack the five of us into it to get out to the mooring.
It rows dreamily, it tows easy, and getting it onboard with a halyard is pretty simple. I eliminated the sail kit to maximize space and save weight, but I still have the mold, and may just build a sailing model when the wife and I go cruising without the kids. Sailing the first one around anchorages in Baja with a fishline towing was a hoot, and the daily grocery-run under sail in Isla Mujeres was a treat.

[TeddyDiver]

I made a nesting dinghy, for sail, oars or small ouboard. Three water tight compartments. Also a dinghy bay in the stern of "mother the ship" where it fits with all it's gear. Stil missing hardware and antiskid..

[kryg]

After having owned 3 inflatables two where zodiac’s that failed .
I bought a used Ocean Craft full aluminim build dingy including the tubes, shorten it by 70 cm, to fit the foredeck so I could use my staysail and added a wraparound fender. It sits in an installed a stainless-steel cradle on the foredeck. What I like about this setup the dingy will possibly outlast my grandchildren, the plus is it is far more stable then the inflatables, plus it can’t ever deflate. Weigh is about 65 kilos without 4 hp outboard motor easy to winch onto the deck. I will never ever own an inflatable again, this will last me a life time Plus.

Originally Posted by Jammer

It's been a while since we've covered this and it's come up in another thread.

Dinghy choice is situational; cruisers in traditional tropical cruising areas -- Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific -- nearly all choose RIBs with larger outboards. Or so I'm told by reliable witnesses, at least, because those aren't my cruising grounds. Anyway RIBs and outboards are readily available for purchase in these areas, SCUBA diving from the dinghy is sometimes a goal, and longer distances are more often crossed in the dinghy for a variety of reasons specific to these areas.

But there's more to cruising and dinghy choices differ elsewhere. The PNW, Maine, the Chesapeake, and England have a history of traditional boatbuilding, and various non-inflatable dinghies made out of wood, fiberglass, or a combination are common. Great Loop cruisers benefit from the ready availability of transient slips and (in many cases) free dockage and may not carry a dinghy at all. On Rainy Lake (part of the U.S.-Canada border waters), houseboat cruising is common and the preferred dinghy is a 16' aluminum utility boat. I've never been to Australia but I understand that larger aluminum dinghies are popular there too, because they are crocodile resistant.

There are also a number of people who prefer a canoe, kayak, or SUP, possibly inflatable.

Anyway, welcome to alt.dinghy, and feel free to tell us about the (non-RIB) dinghy you've chosen, why you chose it, and how it has worked out for you.

[malbert73]

We have 2 dinghies- the RIB which is a highfield CL290 with 15hp Tohatsu 4 stroke. Brilliant combo for stable, high speed, etc. Can pull kids on wakeboard and tube. The engine is great at slow speeds. Davits can hang the whole setup but if it’s sporty or I’m going off coast the outboard comes off. True offshore - the RIB goes on foredeck upside down.

Second dinghy which was our primary for years is a Trinka 10 with sailing rig. Super fun to row and sail. 3.3 hp 2 stroke was perfect for it. But slow, and a bit tippy- led us to get RIB which is far more confidence inspiring for more adventurous exploration

I guess I could take both for local cruising (and have while towing the Trinka) but it’s a lot for a 40 footer. Their strengths are pretty much mutually exclusive

[Dockhead]

We've discussed this a million times, and it's probably worth discussing a million more times, since there is a lack of any clear answer to the question.


The fundamental, irresolveable problem is the contradiction between what is needed to make a nice seaworthy long-range dinghy and what is needed to make the dinghy easy to handle and store.


The ideal dinghy from the first point of view would probably be a 16' or 18' RIB with a pilothouse and a 60hp engine (like you see superyachts carrying), but from the second point of view -- an inflatable kayak. You can't combine the qualities of these two in a single dinghy.


I was involved in figuring this out for a 67' Discovery sailing yacht, where you would think already there is a good solution. Nope. With this size boat you already have better possibilities for deck storage, but none which don't block essential hatches in the accommodation. This particular boat has immensely massive electric davits, and so the finally chosen solution was a console wheel-steered RIB which lives in the davits. We chose a smaller one (I think 310 or 320, something like that) with 20hp, which is way suboptimal from the first point of view, and can't carry the whole crew at once, but gets the job done, and is light enough not to make us worry about the davits in the middle of the ocean.


My boat had a similar solution when I bought her in 2009 -- an Avon 340 console RIB with 25hp wheel steered two stroke. A very seaworthy, fast and good dinghy, but was immensely heavy, and my Simpson electric davits were not as robust as the ones in my friend's D67, so it had to go.


My own compromise was an Avon Lite 310 folding RIB with an 8hp tiller-steered motor (now downsized to 3.5), and I changed the davits to simpler manual ones. This is MUCH less seaworthy than the old one, but MUCH easier to handle and store. It has a folding transom so can be folded up and stuffed into a bag which stores nicely on the foredeck, which is what I do on longer passages. Or being as light as it is, it behaves very nicely in the davits. It's light enough that I can get it on board and fold it up single handed.


The moral of the story -- there is no choice of dinghy which doesn't represent some huge compromise in one thing or another. Unless you have a 100 foot superyacht with room on the afterdeck for chocks for a big RIB, and a dedicated dinghy crane.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Benz

When I designed the cabin and deck of my Cape George 31, I made space for a 9' hard dinghy aft of the mast. Then I built a plug for the dinghy, pulled a mold from it, and made a vinylester/glass sailing and rowing dinghy. I made the bows pretty bluff, so it's buoyant enough forward I can stand on the little foredeck and "front-scull" as I call it, either with boat empty or full of cargo.

Got any pictures of it (or the newer version)? That sounds like quite a nice little dinghy.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

The moral of the story -- there is no choice of dinghy which doesn't represent some huge compromise in one thing or another. Unless you have a 100 foot superyacht with room on the afterdeck for chocks for a big RIB, and a dedicated dinghy crane.

Agreed, there's always some kind of compromise. In our case, with the planing hard dinghy we gave up a bit of boarding stability and weight capacity in exchange for getting a good balance of speed, seaworthiness, weight, and ability to sit in it comfortably for long periods of time. There are designs out there that improve on the weight carrying ability and are lighter than what we have, they just cost far more than our dinghy did.

[Benz]

^^ here's me washing cloth diapers from it in Baja, if it'll attach..