[PUP] What you look for in a dingy?

[Philip Eslinger]

Scott,

You are going down a road (once again) that I have just travelled.    
Three years ago when commissioning Flat Earth, a Nordhavn 50, I went  
with the bigger and faster route.  My main dinghy is  center console  
12' CARIBE RIB with a 40 HP four stroke engine.  What a wonderful  
boat: plenty of power and range.  It will do 44 mph with just me in  
the boat and handle significant seas.   But alas, it won't do  
EVERYTHING.   No boat will.    I am in Hawaii now and will be heading  
south and then west next year.  I find that there are a lot of places  
here where there is no place to dock and I need a dinghy that I can  
pull up on a beach clear of the surf and tide line.   I can't do that  
with the Caribe; it weighs 700 lbs with fuel.  The other alternative  
is to anchor out beyond the waves and swim or wade in, somewhat  
inconvenient if you're going to a restaurant.   Also, with 4' to 5'  
seas or more, winching a even a three hundred pound boat off the boat  
deck of an N40 becomes a little dicey.

I believe that Scott Strickland uses a small inflatable boat as a  
"beach" dinghy in addition to his larger RIB and I noticed that Robby  
and Delores mentioned having an inflatable roll up that they store  
away.  My solution is to use the Portabote as my beach dinghy.  It  
folds flat into a package 10' long, 2' wide and 4" deep and is stored  
on my boat deck right under my main dinghy between the chocks.   I  
use an air cooled 2 HP Honda four stroke that only weighs 28 lbs.    
The weight of the boat is less than 80 lbs so it is VERY easy to drag  
up on the beach or launch by hand when the seas are too large to  
launch the main dinghy. It costs less and weighs less and goes faster  
than any comparable inflatable.  I cruise it at 7 mph with just me in  
the boat and the 2 HP engine.  Because of its light weight,  with a 5  
HP engine, it could easily plane and get 15 mph with three people in  
it.  It has as much interior room as my 12' Caribe and is made of  
some space age polymer material so I don't have to worry about rocks  
or oyster shells damaging it.   It won't sink, either when full of  
water.  If I hadn't already had the Caribe, the Portabote would bear  
serious consideration as a primary dinghy in one of the larger sizes  
with a bigger engine.

http://www.porta-bote.com/

Phil Eslinger
Flat Earth N50
Ko Olina, Hawaii