Who carries a hard dinghy while cruising?

[Viking Sailor]

My dingy setup consists of an eight foot Fatty Knees with Dingy Dogs, a sailing rig, and an electric motor. I hang the dingy from davits when at the dock, spinnaker pole when at anchor, or store it on the foredeck when making a passage. Here is the URL for Dingy Dogs:

Dinghy Dogs Order Form

I am not associated with these folks in anyway and you might be able to get a discount if you shop around.

[trinescape]

we have a 10 ft aluminium with a 5hp outboard its light very stable it rows extremely well and it sits on davits on the stern of our tri out of the way

[waterworldly]

Originally Posted by DWT

That White Water Pram Koffler looks like a tuff little boat. I could not find the weight of it.

David
69 Morgan 30'
Carolann

The weight is on the second page with wieght limits. It says it only holds 420 pounds max though.

[Boomp]

We bought a Portland Pudgy www.portlandpudgy.com this year and are very happy with it. It has a sail stored in the gunnel, Oars, an outboard, multiple compartments, is self bailing, and is +500lbs bouyant. Its bullet proof...well, pretty tough hard repairable plastic. It weighs 125lbs and we towed it over 150 miles with no problems on a sailing vacation to Nantucket and M.V. last week. It even has a lifeboat configuration for blue water sailors.

[max_hyde]

Thought you might be interested in this dinghy, price is a bit prohibitive but other than that seems to tick all the boxes !

folding rib from henshaw ltd

[hideaway]

I have 9.4 Watercraft, unsinkable moulded PVC with a 8hp. O/b. The dingy will plane with 2 in and is very stable. I have to tow it which takes a least a knot off and as I can make 5 this is the downer. calm seas and fair winds Peter

[George Elliott]

hi Folks After cruising with a homebuilt Danny Green Chameloen for 13 yrs. I decided the world needed a nesting, planing dinghy. So I built a prototype, the 3rd prototype was the one. Pulled molds off it and sailed from Cartagena to Trinidad to market it. NOT. Everybody loved the dinghy, light, fast, stable, nested in 5'3" X 4'. Unsinkable and damned near unbreakable. I left the molds in Grenada while running Grenada Marine's electrical dept, in return for the 2nd copy out of the molds. It's still a great dinghy. Good luck George

[forsailbyowner]

I bought a 9' sailboat hull out of someones backyard for $40. Made wide gunnels out of sheet foam, then ran foam down, across bow and shaped bench seats from the foam. Then used pourable foam and filled cavities. Finally glassed over whole works. Its solid, light and sails rows or motors. Being a displacement hull it only does about 5 kts but does it with jerry cans of water and two people powered by a 3.5 merc 4 stroke at 20+ mpg. Is unsinkable and would trust it more than an inflatable which I detest. 5 or so years and they self destruct. Got a zodiac yachtline with my boat and you could literally pull apart the $4k investment with bare hands. I haul my hard dinghy upside down on davits. Have devised method of raising it that way with davit tackle and other lines led to winches to invert. Dont see how people keep boats upright on davits. What happens when heeled and drain hole is raised above bow? Anyway the hull is way old is still around and easily repaired unlike pos inflatable.

[cooper]

I have a ply 10 foot 6 nester. The two halves nested sit nicely on the aft cabin roof. It motors very well with my 2.5 hp egg beater. Some time in the future I will put a center board case in it and a simple lug sail so I can go wandering "up the creek" without chewing through to much fuel. I have just retired a folda bote, after service above and beyond the call of duty. I would get another one at a flash. Storage along one of the rails.

cheers

[George Elliott]

Hi I built a planing nesting dinghy a few years back and pulled molds off it. Figured I'd get rich selling them in Trini. That didn't work out but not because of a problem with the dinghy, people are just in love with their inflatibles. I've had a few but always used a nesting dinghy as well, it's just reality with a small 38' c/w a removable inner forestay. A friend of mine liked the dinghy and simply built a stitch and glue non nesting planing dinghy. In any event a planing hard dinghy is no great problem, they're light, fast and whatever size you want them to be, within reason. My current one is 10' and has the same speed as a Caribe light, it only wins races because it comes up on plane faster. Fair winds George

[ronniesimpson]

I do. I carry a 10 foot Avon fiberglass bottom hard/ planing dinghy, or whatever you wanna call it. I carry it upside down above the house, in between my hard dodger and mast. My 9.9 hp, 4 stroke Suzuki outboard mounts to a transom-thick board behind the cockpit, in between both sides of my solar panel rack. You can't really see a ton from this picture, but it is a pic of my boat at anchor in mexico 2 weeks back.



edit: it's super freakin' heavy, but I have found that I can get it on/ off deck by myself, using the main halyard. i jury-rigged a hoist thing for it, using three tie down points inside the dinghy, and this crazy mess of rope to lift up the outboard. it's super heavy and a pain in the A**, but it is SOOOO nice having a dinghy that hauls, and is comfortable and controllable for like 4 people in any conditions. It does not get in the way of my boom, at all, even when fully inflated. If you wanna get really gangster, you can stuff spare sails underneath the dinghy, to save room inside.

[ronniesimpson]

nother pic. notice outboard behind my captain-less cockpit

[Delezynski]

Fishspearit,

we have an 8 foot PortaBoat. It works GREAT. we have been using it for over 13 years now (the same one). Plaines easy (one person in it) with a 3.5 Hp 2-hot-2. We have friends that put a set of Walker Bay tubes on the side of theirs.

We run it up on the rocks with no worries. And it's so ugly no one wants to steal it. It fold up like a surf board and sits on the side deck for a passage or in calm weather we tow it. AND, you can row it even in windy conditions... TRY that with a deflatable.

Greg

[Minggat]

This is one of my favorite topics. To me, dinks play a HUGE part in making our motherships so enjoyable. Try being without a dink and see what I mean.

Before I go any further, I have to say that I have both, a sailing dink and an inflatable, and they are both on my 36 ft boat. I have worked it out for me.

As said so many times before, They all have their pros and cons. But for me.... Well, I have to chime in on the quote by Southern Star on hard dinks.

#1 "It cannot be stowed below decks..."

(a given). But stowing an inflatable below decks has it's disadvantages as well (unless yours is an airfloor, which has it's own limitations).

..."it interfered with visibility/movement if stowed on deck"

As does an inflatable, if stowed on deck.

2. "It is much less stable to get into and out of than an inflatable."

Agreeed. That's (1 reason) why I have the flotation tubes on my sailing dink.

3. "It is less stable under power than an inflatable."

It's a different purpose boat. I would not try to plane my hard dink, but I do have a 2.5 hp motor for it. With that power, it's very stable.

3. "It had a tendancy to 'bang' into the transom or topsides when reversing, anchoring. or just while drifting when under anchor. This not only creates an annoying below deck noise when sleeping, it tends, even with a decent rubrail, to scrape/abrade the topsides of the mothership."

I was going to use just segments of that quote. But because he's right, I wanted to drive home all the things that can be overcome with the flotation tubes. I hated my hard dink if for no more reason than that. But I loved it for other reasons that I figure I had t make it work for me. The flotation tubes took care of all that beautifully.

My sailing dink gets a lot more use. That's because it's so easy for me to lanuch and retrieve. My boarding ladder does double duty and acts as my davit. I can pull the dink way up that way and it would be less vulnerable to following heavy seas. LESS, does not mean invulnerable of course.

My inflatable is my "go fast" toy. Very nice to have as well. But a royal pain to put together.

Now to be fair, I would always leave it pumped up and ready to go with the segemented plastic roll up floor in place (I REALLY HATE WOOD FLOORS.. hear the yelling?), but with the hard dink already taking up space. I don't wanna, and you can't make me.

[Minggat]

I hope I'm a better sailor than I am a computer geek. I don't know what key I bumped, but my post was gone instantly and now it's here twice.

I wanted to say, that again, trying to be fair, depending on what I'm doing or where I'm going, I often have both dinks ready to deploy as fast as possible.

It all works for me, and life is still good.