450: 440 & 450 tender size

[LuckySteve]

Hi there,
I'm fairly close to pulling the trigger on a L450F but was wondering...

Has anyone ever put a seadoo up on the davits and pulled a tender?

The Seadoo Spark (even the bigger ones) are under the 250kg limit.

As much as we will have a tender, my son and I still like to have some fun water skiing, tubing, wakeboarding, and just the excitement of going fast on the water.

We will still have a tender for everything else, but if I can do both... that sounds like fun.

[Bean Counter]

We have a 450. The dinghy is a 3.3 m Caribe Deep V fibreglass RIB with 20 Electric start and power tilt tiller model Tohatsu 4 stroke. The power trim is a god send in shallow waters of the Bahamas. The Caribe is solid, a bit heavy, but it blasts through the chop very well. We put a Stingray foil on the motor and this really assisted power out of the hole and trim, eliminated porpoising. It is an open dinghy and so heaps of room for two people and their dive gear. Carries 4 easily. The whole unit is a lot less pricy than a console RIB.

The problem with larger console tenders is that with a bigger motor, fuel battery etc etc you have a lot of weight hanging off the rear of the boat, which not good for catamaran trim. The other issue is that when you are in a big sea the forces on the davits are magnified by the lurching of the boat. God forbid you take a wave over the back, more than likely you will lose the tender and the davits. When conditions get such that the tender needs to come aboard it may be impossible to store a console RIB on the deck (an open RIB can go upside down and /or deflated).

A lighter alloy hull may assist the weight issue and can be powered by less horsepower. The alloy is quite thin, not something I would want to test on a rough shore line, and not easy to fix like glass. This all happens when you are miles from anywhere, by the way.

One further thought, a sexy console RIB is far more attractive to thieves. It is all very well having insurance, but the inconvencience in remote parts of the planet of not having a dink would be tedious to say the least.

[roetter]

We have been pondering for a while an upgrade from the standard Lagoon Highfield 350 dinghy with 20HP Honda to a center console dinghy. We cruise in the Bahamas and it is easy to leave the dinghy in the water at the beach. Why do we want to upgrade?

Highfield HFOM350:
- This is the standard dinghy that most dealers offer
- It comes with a 20HP Honda
Plus:
- sturdy aluminum double bottom
- Honda is fuel efficient, smooth running and fairly quiet
Negative:
- Dinghy has a very wet ride (tried all kinds of trims) in cross winds. The bottom is just too straight far forward.
- With 4 people the 20HP Honda will only get the dinghy to plane if you can ride down a wave. 4people plus dog or groceries - no chance to plane it
- The Honda is very picky with water in the fuel. There is a spring ring in the carbutettor accelerator pump that rusts. Every time we return to the boat for the new season we have to fully clean the carburettor more than once. A fixed water seperator filter for the Honda 20 is a must.

Yamaha 30 2-stroke:
Being tired of cleaning the carburettor all the time (I did not realize the water was the problem until later) I bought a Yamaha 30 2-stroke. People told me it will always start, no matter what, and that is true, but:
- really rough running, lots of vibration
- noisy as hell
- stinky
- drinks fuel like there is no tomorrow. Poses the problem of how to store all that fuel when far away from fuel docks and gas stations for extended periods.

We like to explore all the little cays and reefs, so we would like to have a comfortable ride that allows us to take friends and the big dog along as well.

This is what I have come up with after discussing the issues with other sailors here.
New motor and dinghy:
Considerations:
- center console for comfortable sitting (I have a back problem)
-electric start (see back problem)
- electric trim. I find myself changing the trim of the motor often when we go from just one or two people to four plus dog and groceries.
- electric tilt - Bahamas - the most interesting sites are very shallow

Suzuki 4-stroke 30
- is supposed to be very fuel efficient, a frind claims. Once you are planing the electronic fuel injection leans the mixture out making it very fuel efficient.

Center console AB Light dinghy VSX12
-fairly light design 120kg, with Suzuki, fuel, anchor, and misc. 225kg.
- space for four people and stuff