Tenders What do you like?

[Dave_S]

Beautiful job, I don't think I could have cut it either.

I have a rib, not sure how old but haven't put any air in it since I got it. It leaves skid marks on the hull from the rubber splash apron around it which don't work anyway. As soon as there is more than 8in chop I get wet. It's a PITA to get on the plane and unstable when it is. Not much room in it we took 8 trips yesterday to unload Christmas presents, 4 people, and a week's food.

On the good side it is very stable at low speed. Easy to load up from the boat. Comfortable sitting on the edge.

I have bought a tinny to replace it and will fit a soft skirt around it that looks to give increase stability........time will tell.

https://youtu.be/YB2o1EXhS_s

[Dockhead]

Another advantage of an inflatable is you can board it from the water. Might save your life some day.

[nhschneider]

A hand-crafted dinghy can be a work of art but not all of them are practical when the conditions get harsh. We had a New Zealand-made aluminum AquaPro for about 10 years and it worked really well but after 4 years of hard cruising (across the South Pacific, Australia and Indonesia) it needed to be replaced. While in Thailand, we had a RIB made for us in Phuket by a company called Cholomark, a 3.1-meter with a fiberglass hull. It's a very well-made dink and we were able to get all the features we wanted (exact location of davit attaching points, chaps, etc) and it handles really well. The only problem is that it weighs 60 kilos and with a 15hp 2-stroke outboard, it's difficult for my wife and me to drag it up a beach, even with dinghy wheels.

Happy holidays, fair winds and calm seas.

[Mike Banks]

Polycraft Tuff Tender. Little Boat - Big Possibilities - Fishing World

I have one of these--it replaced the Zodiac I had used previously. Very stable for a tender--(not as stable as the Zodiac with its oversized pontoons, but stable enough) and mine has a bimini--something difficult to fit on an inflatable--so it is used not only as a tender but something from which to explore reefs and shallow water fishing spots. Being plastic they will not scrape paint from your hull--but I have used fenders where I moor it alongside just to keep it quiet


Very happy with it--and the foam-filled version qualifies with SOLAS as a life raft--if you keep aboard in the locker the rations, signalling mirror and flares etc and hand-operated water-maker--which I keep in a grab container close to the companion way. I chose the safety yellow colour version for obvious reasons.



Probably one of the best kept secrets outside of Australia where they are extremely popular and cost about the same as an inflatable

https://www.polycraft.com.au/model-range

[01kiwijohn]

Love that boat, Rob. Sails well too.
I carry a deflatable but my real workhorse has been the Danny Green "Chameleon" that my (then) 12 year old grandson helped me build. Yes, the free-board is a little low, but it helps when rowing. The sprit rig actually sails better than I expected and the spars will fit inside the boat. When sailing close hauled the free-board looked (I got used to it) alarmingly low but, the rig allows the top of the sail to twist off when hit by a puff. We've yet to capsize her despite the wide range of ages and experience levels of her crew.
I also have an ancient, 2hp Mariner to push it around; seems plenty fast enough for us. Carries tons of laundry, groceries, propane and Jerry cans etc.
All up cost was just under $2 grand. If anyone plans on building one, I did find a couple of errors when lofting it, but nothing major.

[powsmias]

portland pudgy, row boat, life boat, sail boat, motor boat.. no brainer

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I have bought a tinny to replace it and will fit a soft skirt around it that looks to give increase stability........time will tell.

https://youtu.be/YB2o1EXhS_s

We have a Swift 3.1m RIB but bought a Stacer 3.1m Tinny for our next trip across the top and into the kimberleys, RIB'S just take to much of a beating up that way.

RIB on the foredeck and Tinny in the Davits, same 15hp OB, works a charm but might have a look at the skirts

[Benz]

Originally Posted by txg

Very interesting, whats the complete (incl. oars) weight of the boat in the end? I always wondered why there are not more carbon fiber dinghys. Compared to what a standard hypalon RIB costs the price increase of using carbon fiber instead of glass fiber is totally acceptable.

I don't know the weight precisely, having forgotten to weigh it, but with oars and thwarts I can still easily carry it myself, and my 13 yo daughter can carry one side while I the other for walking up a beach. More importantly, my wife can easily hoist it aboard using the peak halyard while I fend off and settle it into position.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Hard and inflatable dinghies aren't all that much substitutes for each other. Hard dinghies row vastly better and wear better. But small hard dinghies of a size possible to stow on a cruising boat (10 - 11 feet or so or less) are no good for use in surf or other situations where swamping is a risk. They are not as stable, can't carry as much, and you need to worry about scratching your topsides with them. You can't deflate them for storage.

If I had unlimited room (ha), I would have one of each. I would want a hard dinghy which is long enough to be reasonably stable, with a fairly fine hull for speed under oars. Maybe 15 feet. Maybe with some kind of sailing rig. And then a RIB for more everyday duties.

I used a hard dinghy for years as a harbor tender, when I had a river mooring. It was great not to worry about a motor, and it was delightful to row, but I was always afraid of tipping it over or getting swamped.

These very limitations of most hard dinghies are what led me to design and build my own. It has broad bows, for seakindlyness, and plenty of freeboard for cargo capacity. At 9 feet, it stows on the house aft of the mast (cutter rig, of course), but can carry all five of us in comfort, though the comfort is less as the children grow. I don't think our surf landings were any less squirrely than they would have been in a similar-sized inflatable, but again, I designed it to stay dry.
I do know that I've gotten a lot wetter motoring into chop in an inflatable than rowing into in in the dinghy (which is why a lot of people prefer to stand in their inflatables when it's choppy out. No need for that in a proper hard dink.)
I admit that rowing a dinghy well takes practice, but after five years of life aboard with our hard dinghy, I would never go back to an inflatable. My next boat, being bigger, will have a similar carbon/epoxy rowing/sailing tender, but 12 feet long.

[sailingunity]

We have a portabote, 12 ft version. Paid about $1000 for it used, and we run a 6HP 4 cycle on it.

The good:
1. It will get up on a plain pretty easy, with my wife and 3 girls (they are young, so probably equivalent of 3 adults). By myself it would get going pretty quick!
2. Gobs of storage space, because the tubes aren't taking any up. It would hold everyone, plus groceries and a cart pretty easily.
3. "Relatively" stable for a hard boat. I could climb into it from the water, barely.
4. We didn't have to worry about puncturing anything.
5. Lightweight and, obviously, portable.

The not so good:
1. Because the floor is just plastic, it has kind of a waterbed feel to it, making it a little difficult to walk around inside.
2. Despite #3, I didn't feel like it was stable enough (more on this later).
3. It didn't come with attachment points or drains, I had to add them.

We are probably going to replace it with a RIB at some point. We were pretty happy with it, until we met some friends with a RIB and a 15HP engine. Two notable things happened here: we realized how rough of a ride it was in any kind of chop, and how much more stable a RIB can be. At one point, when I was helping him move batteries off his boat, and we both stood on one tube while lifting a battery, I was sold!

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by IslandHopper

We have a Swift 3.1m RIB but bought a Stacer 3.1m Tinny for our next trip across the top and into the kimberleys, RIB'S just take to much of a beating up that way.

RIB on the foredeck and Tinny in the Davits, same 15hp OB, works a charm but might have a look at the skirts

Our plan is take a run up the Kimberly, maybe not for a few years now. We lived in the NT for some years and a tinny was the go for sure. We ran into rocks and branches all the time.

The boat collars look good in the video but I've never seen one in the flesh and I've tried twice to go and have a look at the workshops but they didn't have one to look at.

My worry is that the collars might get chewed up on rocks and oysters or just a jetty.

[geoleo]

Those alum RIB from NZ named Four something wont last!

[Simi 60]

4.3 metre aluminium with a 30 on the back and canopy for us.
Very stable as is, can sit 300kg on the sides without tipping but will probably fit a kapten collar soon and essentially make it a life raft.
Already has sounder/plotter/auto bilgepump and large storage locker for life jackets etc in front.
I will be playing with a windsurfer mast and sail over Xmas to see what, if anything it will do using an oar as a sweep/rudder.

Downside is weight, you aren't dragging it across the mud if the tide leaves you stranded.

[ironvalleyfab]

we have a 9' Livingston fiberglass catamaran tender with a 3.5horse on it if its just me and nothing else in it I can get it to plane if I sit forward to where I can just reach the tiller, plus I can stand on the gunwale (97kg) and it is super stable in all conditions

probably going to reproduce one out of aluminum for myself

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

4.3 metre aluminium with a 30 on the back and canopy for us.
Very stable as is, can sit 300kg on the sides without tipping but will probably fit a kapten collar soon and essentially make it a life raft.
Already has sounder/plotter/auto bilgepump and large storage locker for life jackets etc in front.
I will be playing with a windsurfer mast and sail over Xmas to see what, if anything it will do using an oar as a sweep/rudder.

Downside is weight, you aren't dragging it across the mud if the tide leaves you stranded.

That's not a dinghy, that's a budget cruising boat!

Jim