T&T: Boss Boats

[Robert Phillips]

Down here in the islands where we use our dinghies every day and where 
the conditions are, generally, a bit rough when the trades are blowing, 
the dinghy of choice is a RIB.  Hard dinghies are hard on the 
mother-ship and hard on whatever else they are tied to.  It is also a 
fallacy that inflatable boats won't last as long as I have a 1973 Avon 
that is still in use and there are lots of ten year old RIB's here in 
fine shape having been used every day.

My father, whose trawler lived in a covered slip in Vancouver, opted 
for a hard dinghy because the word around the docks at the YC was that 
inflatables didn't hold up in UV.  What a pain it was having to rig 
fenders on the trawler every time the dinghy went in the water to keep 
them from banging, as opposed to my RIB that quietly lives alongside 
where ever my girls decide to tie it.

Like everything else, though, there are varying degrees of quality and 
the good ones will outlast the others.  Having had most, I will now 
stick to Novurania.  They are well built and very good sea boats.  I 
have a 13' with a 40 HP, which is the smallest Yamaha makes with power 
T&T, the only reason it's bigger than 25 HP.  This 13' rides much 
better than the 15' Apex I had previously and I and my daughters have 
taken it to Bitter End and St. Thomas from Road Town.  I also have a 
23' Seacraft so it isn't that I don't have choices, but the Novurania 
rides so well I like using it, that is when I can get it from my 
daughters who use it instead of the car.

Bob Phillips,
Another Asylum, Tortola, BVI