I have an Avon Redcrest inflatable. A portaboat has some attraction but on my
26 footer there is no acceptable place to put it.

The cabin top? On my boat the cabin top isn't big enough, an the link to some
pictures showed one stowed on the cabin top but it also obstructed the
handrails, which I won't do for safety reasons. I might need to be able to grab
that handrail one day.

The lifelines? If I put it there it fouls the sheet leading the jib track and
also would be an unacceptable obstruction to going forward on the side decks.
YMMV, and larger boats would not have the same issues.

Set up time for my Avon:
5 minutes to pull stowage bag out of cockpit locker, unzip bag, unroll dinghy
(it has a hard rollup floor with interlocking slats)
5 minutes to hook up pump and inflate
5 minutes to insert engine mount, mount engine (lightweight 4 hp 2 stroke), and
throw in safety bag (contains flares, lines, battery nav lights, anchor, life
jackets, handheld vhf)

This is a total of about 15 minutes. Figure another 5 minutes to load people
and cargo. It is a small handy inflatable. Of course a Redcrest can't plane,
but if you have that much need for speed why do you have a sailboat? My boat
has a draft of 2 1/2 feet with the centerboard up so I can anchor in pretty
close to where I want to go.

JJ


On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 01:13:29 GMT, Rosalie B. wrote:

x-no-archive:yes


(JAXAshby) wrote:

It takes me about 20-30 minutes the first time of the season -- mostly
figuring things out again and working against the stiffness. After that,
it's 10-15 minutes to set up or down

all things in a pile on the shore, yup.

On our deck the first time in a season it might take 20 minutes for
the two of us to do it because it's been folded up and resists being
unfolded. I don't think we've ever done it solo - usually the two of
us working together.

We don't pad the deck (never had any problem with black marks but
maybe that's because we got it used and they've all worn off). We
keep all the items needed to put it together in one bag which is also
on the deck so we don't have to go looking for them. The little bits
like bolts etc are in a smaller bag in the big bag.

One of us holds the boat open - the other one puts in the center seat.
That holds the boat open so that the rest of the stuff can be put
together. The rest goes very quickly given that we have all the stuff
there.

After we put it together we launch it using the whisker pole as a
crane. Does not take long to do that as the bridle attachments are
already there.

I don't know exactly how heavy it is, but it is difficult for me and
Bob together to carry it fully rigged for any distance, and I CAN
carry 50 lbs. If it is just the boat without the seats, we can carry
it easily and Bob can pick it up by himself.

The motors for both dinghys are on the aft rail unless we are using
the dinghy. So the time to get and rig the motor will be the same
regardless of which dinghy we are using. We also have a container of
stuff that we need to use the dinghy (lights, PFDs, fire extinguisher
etc).

On the deck on my boat with seats, transom down below along with bolting
hardwar, plus engine on the rear pulpit of my boat, plus the gas tank for the
o/b engine, plus safety gear, plus rigging the harness to lift the Porta-Bote
off my boat, plus lowering the bote, plus all else, well the time is a mite
longer than on shore.


grandma Rosalie

James Johnson
remove the "dot" from after sail in email address to reply