From
scp2hvfc -
"
What do you do with the dinghy? None of these boats have davits."
Most of the B40s that I'm familiar with keep a hard dinghy (if they have one) on the foredeck (see
photo of my
boat being put overboard). Mine is a nice, refurbished, 7'11"
Dyer sailing midget (see other photo). My foredeck has a
teak fitting for the bow just aft of the
windlass and two
teak fittings between the forward
hatch and the Dorade box for the transom. Often, on short hops, the dinghy is simply towed behind the boat. It's not too difficult (on a calm day) to use one of the main
mast halyards to
lift the dinghy over the
lifelines. I'll often get curious looks when I
anchor the boat and then sail ashore in the sailing dinghy. If it were up to me, none of these
boats would ever have davits.
Otherwise, I keep an
inflatable dinghy in one of the
cockpit sail lockers. I use the hard dinghy when I'm going to beach the dinghy - or when it's just a short trip. I use the
inflatable when I have a lot of stuff to convey to the boat from shore, or when I have a long(-ish) distance to go and the winds are light or contrary.
"
No davits for solar so how do you keep batteries topped off without the engine going?"
Yes, that's a problem with these boats. There are not many places to put
solar cells that are out of a sail shadow. I'm looking into putting
panels on the
lifelines near the
cockpit - and a way to shift them from one side to the other so they can catch the sun without being shaded by the main or mizzen
sails. So far, I haven't come up with a good solution. I've heard of some folks looking at putting flexible solar cells on a
bimini - but I haven't actually seen any of those in action. Any thus fitted would have the same shading problem.
So, it's charge
batteries using
shore power or running the
engine.