Before you give West Marine some outrageous amount of money for this
cutesy milk bottle boat, how about do a little simulator testing on
the Hunter to see how it's gonna work out?

Assuming you can't borrow one from your neighbor for a weekend, drop
by WalMart or some other big store and get a box that's 8 ft long, 4
ft wide by 3 ft high (about the same dimensions as the Walker Bay).
Strap the box down on your foredeck for a while to see if it's gonna
be in the way and what problems it will be. Haul the box on and off
of the dock over the rails and riggin' with enough junk in it to match
the weigh of the WB8.

I'm asking you to do this because a boater just gave me a Watertender
9.4' little tri-hulled dingy from E-dock at our marina, here. He's
been trying to give it away to another yacht for a year, but it's been
sitting gathering amazing biology docked in front of his sloop. I
offered to pump the water out of it one day and he said, "Do you want
it? It's YOURS!", and eventually signed over the title to me. He got
fed up doing what you're intending and bought himself a folding boat,
the kind you see fishermen use. It folds FLAT and mounts against his
handrail up in his bow using ZERO deck space. They hated the
Watertender but love the folding boat.....

I put the little boat on a little trailer with a 3hp Yamaha outboard
another yachtsman who sold his Hatteras gave me. Makes a great little
river boat for out in front of my home. Great for exploring the
little creeks, too......but not if you gotta haul it over the rail and
store it on deck....

Free boat/motors are fantastic performers...(c;



On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 20:56:47 GMT, Albert P. Belle Isle
wrote:

I'm really attracted to the Walker Bay 8 as a dink that appears
sufficiently small to fit inverted on the foredeck of my little Hunter
310, and light enough to possibly be able to man-handle on-and-off
without using a jury-rigged harness.

However, I note that it's made of injection-molded polypropylene.

Can anyone comment on the ease-of-launch/stowage issue, or -
especially - on how effective their "UV stabilization" really is?

Also - is Niccolls Lite still in business? Their NN10 looks really
nifty.

Thanks.

Al
s/v Persephone


Larry W4CSC

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