hard dinghy or soft?

[Andrew Means]

Hey all -

I'm gearing up for two weeks in the San Juans in a couple weeks and I'm wondering if I should bite the bullet and get a hard-shell dignhy or just stick with our zodiac-style one we currently have. The zodiac one has shitty oarlocks and oars, but we can toss it on the bow of the boat and it fits fine. For those of you with hard dinghys, do you feel they tow better than a well-inflated zodiac? I'm looking for something that can take at least two people comfortably, hopefully three. I suppose a zodiac will be more stable in the water than a sailing dinghy, yeah?

I also have a fantasy about sailing around the little coves and stuff of Sucia Island in a little sailing dinghy, so there's that too : )

 

[Loren Beach]

'Yak Attack?

Strictly in the 'for what it's worth' dept....
There are sailors in our club that have owned and used (and abused) the Sportyak dinghy since the 70's. Some of those old dinghies are really sun-faded and beat up, but they still work fine. Yup. they're ugly, but one of them rowed right past us in our slat-bottom Zodiac one time. Of course most anything rows better than a fabric-bottom inflatable boat...


I see that the trusty 'Yak is still being sold:
http://directboats.com/sunboat.html

There must have been an agressive dealer in the Sea-Tac area back in those days, and sold them by the gross.

Cheers,
Loren

 

[E33MikeOx]

Actually, there is a third dinghy option. Not hard, not inflatable, check out the folding Porta-Bote at

http://www.porta-bote.com

Several of our YC members have these and they seem to like them a lot. I have experience with both a hard dingly, and an inflatable, and found both to be not entirely satisfactory. Everything is a compromise! One thing I really like about the Porta-Bote is that when folded, you can lash it to the lifeline stantions kinda like a short surf board. Stowed in that manner, it doesn't clutter up your deck and thus doesn't complicate moving around your boat. Also, there are a lot of rocky (inflatable unfriendly) beaches in the San Juans.

Mike O.

E-33 JP Foolish

 

[rwthomas1]

I've used a wood floored Achilles, a slat bottom Zodiac, a stitch-n-glue Nutshell pram and an Zodiac with an high pressure inflatable floor. The wood floor Achilles is cumbersome, tough to get up on deck as its heavy, etc. The slat bottom is easy to get on/off the boat but sucked to row or even motor with. The Nutshell was a dream to row(and sail!) but too heavy/cumbersome to get on/off deck. The best solution thus far is the high pressure floor inflatable. Yes, it has the negatives of an inflatable, but the HPF is very rigid, rows better than the other two inflatables, is significantly lighter than the wood floor Achilles, motors better than both and yet rolls up quickly to a reasonably small package that is much easier to stow on deck or below. I hate towing. Period. I've had the dinks flip in the wind, fill with water from spray and the drag costs 1/2-1kt of speed. Towing, especially the Nutshell, also produces an extremely annoying "slap-slap-slap" noise from the water on the dink hull. I sail for peace and quiet, not to listen to the dink! In short, the HPF inflatable is the best compromise for me. RT

 

[Frank Langer]

We love our 8' Walker Bay hard fibreglass dinghy. It tows very well, doesn't get damaged if we pull it up on shore over rocks or barnacles, it rows really well and can take a small motor, though we don't have/need one. Last year we bought the tube surround that attaches to it and gives it alot more stability, which my wife appreciated. It is easy to pull onto the dock for cleaning, and I can raise it on the bow myself with spinnaker halyard and winch.
I am not aware of any downsides to it and would certainly recommend it.

Frank

 

[u079721]

Actually, there is a third dinghy option. Not hard, not inflatable, check out the folding Porta-Bote at

http://www.porta-bote.com

Several of our YC members have these and they seem to like them a lot. I have experience with both a hard dingly, and an inflatable, and found both to be not entirely satisfactory. Everything is a compromise! One thing I really like about the Porta-Bote is that when folded, you can lash it to the lifeline stantions kinda like a short surf board. Stowed in that manner, it doesn't clutter up your deck and thus doesn't complicate moving around your boat. Also, there are a lot of rocky (inflatable unfriendly) beaches in the San Juans.

Mike O.

E-33 JP Foolish

We really liked using a Porta-Bote on our E38, and would highly recommend it. My one reservation is that I didn't want to lash ours to the stanchions outboard, but rather along the coach house inboard inside of the standing rigging and chainplates. So we bought the 8 foot model which fit fine, but which was a bit small in use. So I would recommend the 10 foot model, though I don't know how well it would fit the way we stored ours.

 

[toddster]

The only problem I ever had with an inflatable in the San Juans, or rocky beaches elsewhere, was when someone tried to deflate it by walking on it. On the rocks. :rolleyes_d: My friends had a little whaler what was ludicrously heavy for its size. They were much happier ditching it for an inflatable.

I'm leaning toward an some kind of inflatable now, just because stowing a dinghy at all on a -30-footer seems problematic. I've been looking at inflatable kayaks because they're easy to stow and I could shoulder one and carry it to the car from some of the anchorages near me. And should be fun for exploring skinny water. But wow, they seem expensive for what they are.

 

[D & DM Cahill]

hard or soft dinghy

We have an 8 foot Gig Harbor hard dinghy. It weighs 65 pounds and is easy to row and tow. (We could carry 3 people 20 years ago but we seem to have gained some weight with age - so now we stick to two!) We decided on the hard dinghy for easy rowing because we didn't want to have to deal with an outboard and the gas cans that seem to go with inflatables. I am not too worried about dragging it up on a non-sandy beach since it now has 20 years of scratches on it. Thanks. Dave

 

[rwthomas1]

I should add that when I deploy and retrieve the high pressure floor inflatable I'm able to do so without a winch, halyard, etc. Its light enough that its toss it over the side or yank it back onboard. YRMV. RT

 

[NavyGuy]

It's funny that you mention Sucia, I was just there last weekend in my 27. Anyway, I recently bought a used 8' Sevymarine inflatable (made in 1991!), and it has been great in the San Juans. I live in Anacortes and have been going on weekend adventures all summer exploring as much as I can as this is my first summer here. When I'm not using my dinghy, I deflate it, roll it up, and place it in my quarter berth. It's just my wife and I on the boat anyway. It only weights about 30 pounds so it's light enough to just throw over the side once it's inflated and bring back aboard when not using it. The only hard part is rowing the thing. With that flat bottom, I used to do a lot of "Crazy Ivans" at first, but I've gotten better with practice. So, to answer your question, I'd go with inflatable, it's served me well here in the San Juans. Hope that helps.

 

[Sven]

Excellent and vexing question.

We have an old (from La Petite days) 8' WM Zodiac inflatable with slats. Two of the slats have broken so far as has one oarlock, and one oar got stolen and cost almost 20% as much as the whole dinghy when we bought it.

We now have a 3.5 hp Nissan on it. The funny thing is that it rows perfectly for me once the load is balanced but under power I can't control it for the life of me when I come up to something in close quarters and want to come alongside. I really think rowing control is all a matter of practice and since that's what I grew up with that's what I'm better at and powering I'm lost.

I do wish the dinghy did not have the rigid transom as that is where most of the bulk and much of the weight comes from. I'd much rather have some flimsy contraption on an inflatable transom and a smaller outboard. We won't store the inflatable on deck either inflated or deflated and we'll only tow it for a few hours. On deck or towed behind, the dinghy just has too much potential of becoming a danger if the weather should suddenly turn bad (not too likely in So. Cal. but it does happen). Currently we stow it in the aft bunk and are trying to find a better solution.

We also bought a Minn Kota 55 saltwater trolling motor with the idea that we'd get rid of the 40 lb outboard and the gas can ! So far we haven't set up the batteries for charging so we've never used the Minn Kota

We did pick up a Sea Eagle inflatable kayak hoping that might be an alternative to lugging the inflatable. The Sea Eagle is pretty amazing. The inflatable floor becomes rigid enough so you can easily stand on it. I'm not sure it would be practical for large provisioning runs and at this point there is no way to attach an electric outboard for example for longer runs. There is also the problem that when you paddle you always get water from the paddles on your legs so if you need to dress up for some official in some foreign port you'd have to work around that.

We're still toying with the idea of keeping just the kayak and seeing if we could attach the Minn Kota somehow.



-Sven

 

[toddster]

I was looking at the hobie inflatable kayak$. I agree that they would inevitably be a wet ride, except in the calmest conditions (e.g. the ones in the demo videos!). Re: motors, they offer the torqueedo electric motor as an option. It's quite expensive, but it can be mounted either in the mirage-drive well or there is a mounting kit that enables the motor to replace the rudder. That last option might conceivably be applicable to other kinds of kayaks.

I've also seen some people use outriggers with a trampoline to greatly increase kayak cargo capacity (e.g. for scuba diving), though I haven't seen it done with an inflatable. It seems like it might be the basis for a modular system, but could also make stowage and assembly kind of a hassle.

Speaking of modular systems, I have a totally impractical vision of a kayak that ferries you and your folding bicycle to shore, then converts into a bicycle trailer that you can tow down the road to the grocery store or wherever. :nerd:

 

[Loren Beach]

dinghy/electric power combo

http://forums.sbo.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=143413

Seemingly relevant thread...

LB

 

[Sven]

Speaking of modular systems, I have a totally impractical vision of a kayak that ferries you and your folding bicycle to shore, then converts into a bicycle trailer that you can tow down the road to the grocery store or wherever. :nerd:

Our friend Steve has had somewhat related ideas http://microship.com/photos/displayimage.php?album=2&pos=4

Now he's on a 44' steel sloop.



-Sven

 

[davisr]

folbot, folding boat

Here's another option: a folbot, or a set of them. Folbot sounds like this when properly pronounced: "Foal Boat." It's short for "folding boat." They've been made in Charleston, SC for a long time. I traveled hundreds of miles in them with friends growing up. The ones we used were the old wooden framed ones that were covered with thick vinyl. One of the folbots was a double, the other a single. We could load camping gear in them, and best of all, several cases of beer. Never had a problem with stuff getting wet while under way.

The Folbot company is now under new ownership. I stopped by their office/factory a few months ago to check things out. Their new folbots are high tech, as the website suggests. They said they sell them all over the world. I don't have any interest in the company. I just think their boats are really cool, and I hope one day to have one or two as dinks. If you take a look at their video, you'll see that you can also rig them with sails.

http://www.folbot.com/

Roscoe

 

[davisr]

origami, folding dinghy

There is also this funky option: the origami dinghy. It handles a motor, oars, or even a sail. The video of it speeding along under power is worth a chuckle or two, but hey, if it gets you where you want to go . . .

http://www.woodenwidget.com/vid5.htm

Roscoe

 

[Andrew Means]

Thanks for all the info, this is great!