Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
Have a look at these dinghies =
http://www.activewatersports.com.au/...cts/boats.html "DS King" wrote in message ... Bob wrote: Have a Westsail 32 and need good recommendations about which is the best dinghy to use on a cruise starting out in the Caribbean and maybe beyond. Past experience with other boats always was with a hard dink but for snorkeling its too hard to get back in to without swamping. If you have cruised on a small boat and have a strong recommendation I want to hear from you. Tired of reading all the ads in catalogs. Also mention the size and make of engine you found successful. IMHO "best dinghy" and "outboard" are mutually exclusive. "J. Amgine Neilson" wrote: I've cruised on small and very small boats. For the dinghy I generally prefer a hard one, but you're right about them being less than ideal for snorkeling. We swim from our sailboat, but there's no skindiving in our current waters. Right. Another thought along those lines, if it's too difficult to get into the water / back aboard the main cruising boat for swimming/snorkeling, how in the world are you ever going to cope with a crew overboard? How do you get in and out of the dinghy from the deck? From what I've observed, most people would rather have clumsy unworkable arrangements, waste lots of time & effort fiddling with cantankerous outboards, and have the hazard & smell & mess ofoutboard mix, so that they can buzz around the harbor in a thief-bait inflatable. But then, if common sense were really common, the world would be a different place. The most innovative design I've seen for snorkeling was a boat in the PNW. They had a teak cockpit grate which they would throw overboard with fenders under it, making their own floating dock. The dinghy was always tied to this, rather than trailing behind. And, of course, it made a great swim raft, floating only a couple inches out of the water. On the other hand, I don't think too many people could be on it before it started swamping. That's a great idea, thanks Amgine! Fresh Breezes- Doug King |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
If we had enough room on the fore deck for a 9' Boston Whaler, that would be my
choice, with a 15 hp motor. I was in a friends, and he and I (est. 475# total) got up on a plane easily, and it was a dry ride! Our Avon 10'er is nice but wet in anything but calm conditions. My .02 |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
As a sympathetic owner of a Westsail 32, myself, I would discourage
you from even considering any of the Walker Bay products that were previously recommended. Although their boats are very affordable, they will only provide you with years of frustration. After owning a new 8' WB, we sold it for pennies on the dollar just one month after we bought it. It was more unstable than the proverbial pschyzophrenic and totally useless in anything above a very light chop. Besides, any WB of adequate size will occupy a lot of real estate on your deck and is cumbersome to deploy and recover from the Westsail's deck. My wife and I are back to using our Avon inflatable. It stores easily enough in the fo'c'sle and provides a wonderfully stable platform for snorkeling and diving. The only disadvantage, of course, is with rowing, which is why we tried the WB. If you still consider it, be sure to try the one with the inflatable collar. I hear that it resolves some of the problems I mentioned and still provides good performance while rowingl; always a plus when cruising. Good luck on your search! Louis s/v Synergy Westsail 32 #679 "just me" wrote in message news:TEgYa.83823$YN5.60652@sccrnsc01... I my opinion it simply depends on space and weight. I personally use an 10' air floor Zodiac. It weighs 65#. I use a 10hp 2 stroke merc. It weighs 75#. I can pretty easily lift, move, stow it by myself without much trouble. Rigged a 4 point lift and use a halyard if I want ot put it on deck. It ain't perfect, but what is! "Over40pirate" wrote in message ... If we had enough room on the fore deck for a 9' Boston Whaler, that would be my choice, with a 15 hp motor. I was in a friends, and he and I (est. 475# total) got up on a plane easily, and it was a dry ride! Our Avon 10'er is nice but wet in anything but calm conditions. My .02 |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
"just me" wrote in message news:TEgYa.83823$YN5.60652@sccrnsc01...
I my opinion it simply depends on space and weight. I personally use an 10' air floor Zodiac. It weighs 65#. I use a 10hp 2 stroke merc. It weighs 75#. I can pretty easily lift, move, stow it by myself without much trouble. Rigged a 4 point lift and use a halyard if I want ot put it on deck. It ain't perfect, but what is! "Over40pirate" wrote in message ... If we had enough room on the fore deck for a 9' Boston Whaler, that would be my choice, with a 15 hp motor. I was in a friends, and he and I (est. 475# total) got up on a plane easily, and it was a dry ride! Our Avon 10'er is nice but wet in anything but calm conditions. My .02 With our 28' S2, we use a 8' Nautilus hard dinghy with oars. It can only handle two adults when being rowed or two adults and a kid but it really rows well. It is dificult to get back aboard but I use the jib halyard and have gotten s sort of system to do this. It stows on the fordeck over hte hatch and in the summer causes some sort of draft where the V berth is considerably cooler than the rest of the boat. Now that we have another child, and bigger kids, we have tried using an inflatable kayak along with the Nautilus with limited success. The Nautilus tows very poorly so we dont do that. The Nautilus can be rigged for sailing but we have never done that while cruising as its sailing performance is poor at best. I suspect I will eventually go with an inflatable with lower hp engine. How long does it take to onflate one of these? DBO "Ragtime" |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
This is what I have, with a 25HP Yamaha.
http://www.bossboats.com/default.asp?Page=Yachtsman_10 It's a RBB, rigid buoyancy boat. Built like an inflatable, except the tubes are fiberglass. Stowage in the tubes, no worrying about air pressure, works well for me. -- Keith __ "After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him... The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut." - Will Rogers "Parallax" wrote in message om... "just me" wrote in message news:TEgYa.83823$YN5.60652@sccrnsc01... I my opinion it simply depends on space and weight. I personally use an 10' air floor Zodiac. It weighs 65#. I use a 10hp 2 stroke merc. It weighs 75#. I can pretty easily lift, move, stow it by myself without much trouble. Rigged a 4 point lift and use a halyard if I want ot put it on deck. It ain't perfect, but what is! "Over40pirate" wrote in message ... If we had enough room on the fore deck for a 9' Boston Whaler, that would be my choice, with a 15 hp motor. I was in a friends, and he and I (est. 475# total) got up on a plane easily, and it was a dry ride! Our Avon 10'er is nice but wet in anything but calm conditions. My .02 With our 28' S2, we use a 8' Nautilus hard dinghy with oars. It can only handle two adults when being rowed or two adults and a kid but it really rows well. It is dificult to get back aboard but I use the jib halyard and have gotten s sort of system to do this. It stows on the fordeck over hte hatch and in the summer causes some sort of draft where the V berth is considerably cooler than the rest of the boat. Now that we have another child, and bigger kids, we have tried using an inflatable kayak along with the Nautilus with limited success. The Nautilus tows very poorly so we dont do that. The Nautilus can be rigged for sailing but we have never done that while cruising as its sailing performance is poor at best. I suspect I will eventually go with an inflatable with lower hp engine. How long does it take to onflate one of these? DBO "Ragtime" |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
I don't think that there is a "best dinghy" for the simple reason that we
all have different ideas about cruising. I like small and spartan, you might like big & fancy. My perfect dinghy is a simple 9 ft pram with a 3hp motor small, easy to row and ugly enough not to be a thiefs first choice. "Keith" wrote in message ... This is what I have, with a 25HP Yamaha. http://www.bossboats.com/default.asp?Page=Yachtsman_10 It's a RBB, rigid buoyancy boat. Built like an inflatable, except the tubes are fiberglass. Stowage in the tubes, no worrying about air pressure, works well for me. -- Keith __ "After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him... The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut." - Will Rogers "Parallax" wrote in message om... "just me" wrote in message news:TEgYa.83823$YN5.60652@sccrnsc01... I my opinion it simply depends on space and weight. I personally use an 10' air floor Zodiac. It weighs 65#. I use a 10hp 2 stroke merc. It weighs 75#. I can pretty easily lift, move, stow it by myself without much trouble. Rigged a 4 point lift and use a halyard if I want ot put it on deck. It ain't perfect, but what is! "Over40pirate" wrote in message ... If we had enough room on the fore deck for a 9' Boston Whaler, that would be my choice, with a 15 hp motor. I was in a friends, and he and I (est. 475# total) got up on a plane easily, and it was a dry ride! Our Avon 10'er is nice but wet in anything but calm conditions. My .02 With our 28' S2, we use a 8' Nautilus hard dinghy with oars. It can only handle two adults when being rowed or two adults and a kid but it really rows well. It is dificult to get back aboard but I use the jib halyard and have gotten s sort of system to do this. It stows on the fordeck over hte hatch and in the summer causes some sort of draft where the V berth is considerably cooler than the rest of the boat. Now that we have another child, and bigger kids, we have tried using an inflatable kayak along with the Nautilus with limited success. The Nautilus tows very poorly so we dont do that. The Nautilus can be rigged for sailing but we have never done that while cruising as its sailing performance is poor at best. I suspect I will eventually go with an inflatable with lower hp engine. How long does it take to onflate one of these? DBO "Ragtime" |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
As others have said, there is no best dinghy as it depends on your
circumstances. But here is what we use and why: Caribe 9X with 9.8 hp Nissan with flat pitch prop and Doel-Fin We cruised the east coast and Bahamas last year and needed a dinghy that could go reasonable far and fast and carry two adults, a 40 lb dog and some groceries/laundry/etc. The above rig will do that and plane with all of the load. It wouldn't plane with all of this stuff without the flat pitch prop and Doel-Fin. We carry the dinghy on aft davits so the short length is a plus. If this is not an issue I would go up to 10 feet- it will plane easier. The Caribe is a bit heavier than some but it is built tough- look at the heavy molded rub rail for example. And it is hypalon which is essential for long term storage in the sun. The X version indicates a double layer floor. The lighter RIBs have no floor but we used one like this for a while and found that walking on the sloped floor was difficult and the double layer floor was well worth it. If I had to manually haul it up regularly I might go with the lighter models, but on davits an extra 20 lbs or so is tolerable. The Nissan is one of the lightest 10 hp outboards and has a bullet proof reputation. I have also used the Yamaha 10 hp. It is much heavier but I think is better built. I particularly liked the front mounted shifter. David |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
Just to show the other end of the spectrum, we use a 17 ft. Key West center
counsel with a 90 yammy. Best of Both worlds. Trawler and go fast. Sterling |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
|
#10
|
|||
|
|||
What's the best dinghy for cruising and why?
Andre Venter wrote:
I don't think that there is a "best dinghy" for the simple reason that we all have different ideas about cruising. I like small and spartan, you might like big & fancy. My perfect dinghy is a simple 9 ft pram with a 3hp motor small, easy to row and ugly enough not to be a thiefs first choice. I forget whether I got "in" on this conversation, so apologize if I'm repeating, but I'm a real fan of the PortaBote. Folds up to the size of a 8, 10 or 12' surf board, folds out to 5' wide and rows and powers almost as well as a proper hard dink. A 4 HP engine drives it at 12-15 knots with 200 or so pounds onboard, an indication of how easily it's driven. Handles 5 full sized adults in comfort and they don't get wet at speed, so it's usually the raftup's taxi of choice. Our 12.5 patiently sits on the side of the foredeck for whenever we need it, but essentially takes no space (except the seats, which we can comfortably stow well out of the way in the engine compartment). -- Jere Lull Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD) Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/ |