Best dinghy under $3000

[aclmck]

if your into a lot of diving and have the room on your davit for something bigger, start looking at cat type dinghy's they are in most cases easier to get into some even have boarding ladders that work, you'll get a pretty good one for 3500 in pvc or 5000 in hypalon, they are easy to make chaps for the pvc.

Takacat.com is one brand but many others exist

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

What I really need to do is con one of you guy's into bringing back a Two Smoke 15 Yamaha back for me.
I'd think someone could get a new motor every time they went, plus maybe make a little money doing so? What do they cost anyway?

$2150 in Nassau.

[a64pilot]

Surely there has to be a "grey market" for these things?

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Surely there has to be a "grey market" for these things?

Not worth the effort. Take your vacation and sail to Nassau.

[fishead]

I've got a low hour 15 yamaha that just came out 10 year storage. New water pump impeller, lower unit seal and lower unit oil. Fired right up and runs great.
Motor was well pickled and cranked over a few times every year. I've just bought a 12 AB and will use my stored 25 on it. I've been thinking about selling the 15. I'm in Ft Lauderdale for a few more weeks. PM me if interested.

[savoir]

There won't be too many inflatables worth owning that can both hold dive gear and cost less than $3,000. You will want one at least 10 ft long. Even with a 10ft dinghy a 20 hp motor will be too heavy and you will curse yourself every time you have to stow it. This combo would mean almost 250 lbs hanging off your davits. OUCH !

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Vasco

Not worth the effort. Take your vacation and sail to Nassau.

I intend to, but in order to keep you guy's from reading my obit, I think I'll get a little practice in first, maybe next year?
One day I will be famous, just don't want to be infamous

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by savoir

There won't be too many inflatables worth owning that can both hold dive gear and cost less than $3,000. You will want one at least 10 ft long. Even with a 10ft dinghy a 20 hp motor will be too heavy and you will curse yourself every time you have to stow it. This combo would mean almost 250 lbs hanging off your davits. OUCH !

One I'm looking at is 3.1 M, about 10'2"? Yes even though quoted numbers are less than 250, I'm sure by the time you get stuff wet and have a little water in the bilge it would be 250 lbs.
But I do not intend to do any sailing, even calm water with the motor on the dink. Kind of diving we will most likely be doing, I'd carry the HP 80's. little short steel tanks that hold 80 cu ft at 3442 PSI, way smaller and lighter than aluminum 80's. I almost certainly won't be carrying my HP 130's or LP 108's in warm shallow water diving. Maybe I'll sidemount LP50's, who knows?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

One I'm looking at is 3.1 M, about 10'2"? Yes even though quoted numbers are less than 250, I'm sure by the time you get stuff wet and have a little water in the bilge it would be 250 lbs.
But I do not intend to do any sailing, even calm water with the motor on the dink. Kind of diving we will most likely be doing, I'd carry the HP 80's. little short steel tanks that hold 80 cu ft at 3442 PSI, way smaller and lighter than aluminum 80's. I almost certainly won't be carrying my HP 130's or LP 108's in warm shallow water diving. Maybe I'll sidemount LP50's, who knows?

I'm buying a boat, most likely one that won't have a Dink already. I'm budgeting $5,500 or so for a dink, actually I'm expecting to spend 20% of the initial purchase price of the boat getting it just like I and the Admiral want, even though I expect to buy a ten yr old boat, quite a lot of what I'll spend it on is not purist and is controversial, but I need to make her happy. If I've learned anything in being with her over thirty years, it's if she isn't happy, I'm not happy.

Meant to edit, somehow I quoted myself, operator head space and timing I guess

[savoir]

A 20 hp 4 stroke Yamaha weighs 115 lbs and a 10 ft Achilles weighs 128 pounds. Add a little fuel, anchor + chain + rode + oars etc and you can easily get upwards of 250 lbs. Changing brands can make it heavier - my 10 ft dinghy weighs 135 lbs. AB make a 10 ft lightweight aluminium dinghy at 117 lbs but one of them will set you back around $4,500.

[shufti]

We had the transom come unglued on the inflatable tender that came with our boat (admittedly it must have been 20yrs or so old). The missus was non too impresssed with having to hold the transome on whilst I motored us back to the boat (her, me and two kids 6 and 3 on board). Luckily we ere only about 5oom away from the boat.

Even though I know in my head it was an old boat, I've kind of become a bit gunshy of inflatables as you may well imagine (the minister for war even moreso).

We've replaced it with a polyethelene tender from 'Polycraft' (a local [poly boat builder in my town) . $1850 including the 'underseat storage' option which has given us a heap of dry storage area. At 67kg it's a bit heavier than an inflatable of thesame time, but our davit handles it easily. Runing a 6hp yammi 2strk which gets it on the plane with just myself aboard - but still pushes it plenty fast enough with a load for boat-beach transfers. Also much more robust than an inflatable - no longer have to worry about fishing knives, crab pots etc puncturing it which is a big bonus to us.

Very stable as well as this pic attests too. (Not my pic BTW - we bought a white one).

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I intend to, but in order to keep you guy's from reading my obit, I think I'll get a little practice in first, maybe next year?
One day I will be famous, just don't want to be infamous

I think I'm repeating myself but buy a cheap small outboard off Craigs list until you get to Nassau. For all of US east coast it'll do.

[DDabs]

Westmarine has a 10'2" for $2500. I saw an older model there today for $150 that was the same exact thing, just the discontinued model. RIB.

[ShaktisBoy]

You guys crack me up with your go big go powerful recommendations. I,m with Vasco, no matter what dink you chose get a small outboard until you can get to a place to buy a more powerful and light weight 2 stroke. Craigslist is full of them. Things I look for in a dinghy. Ruggedness. I spearfish and have friends who like to cast pointy things in the water and sometime gaf what they catch! Gaf or spear tip + Inflatable = wet ride home sooner or later. Weight is every bit as important as ruggedness. My 12 footer weighs less than 100 pounds empty and with normal gear about 110 lbs. The 54 lb outboard rides on its cradle in all but the most benign conditions. Hanging more than 200 pounds on davits not only puts enormous strain on your davits and supporting structure, it also is very hard to lift into said davits , and finally that much weight way out back aft of the rudder tends to put the boat out of ballance. Next item up is size of the dinghy. Over powering is just plain dumb! I watched a guy just about a month ago with a 20 HP Merc on the back of his 10.5 RIB he was just motoring along on a plane and hit a wake at a funny angle. This caused the RIB to bounce and turn a bit, the sideways motion caused him to accidentally throttle up uncontrollably. The rib flips dumping him his dog his toolbox, groceries and all the other stuff normally reserved for inside the boat. In trying to flip the dink back over the 20HP merc chose this time exact time to say goodbye and fell off the transom sinking 15 feet to the lagoon floor but not before ripping the fuel line off of the motor quick link. Lucky for him the EPA wasn't there to fine him for a hazmat spill. I went diving the next morning to hook up a float to the outboard and recover some of his tools. When we finally got the outboard up he said f*@%It you keep it. Incredibly this was the 3rd time he had recovered the outboard from the bottom of a body of water. Last but not least is Value. I want decades of use before I have to replace an expensive item like a Dinghy not years. My current dinghy is 17 years old and going strong. I will easily get another 7 - 10 years out of her.
All dinghy's are compromises in some area's my dink's weakness is you cant leave a outboard on it unattended at a dock for days unattended. A day or two of heavy rain is likely to swamp it. The original seats are a joke and don't last, they also got hotter than hell down her in the sun. I ended up replacing them with marine ply varnished and light colored foam cushions on top. Also it is so ugly no one ever thinks about stealing it.

Good luck with your search

[savoir]

Dinghy theft is an unfortunate fact of life darned near everywhere. Thieves prefer the big vroom vroom and will pick a 20 hp over a 5 hp every time. No one wants a 5 hp on the family panga.