T&T: Rigid dink vs Hard bottom Caribe

[Dave Cooper]

<Marin wrote: ........With several good manufacturers of these things on the
market I cannot think of any reason why anyone would want to screw around
with a finite-life, leak-prone, pain-in-the-butt inflatable anymore.>

Wow, ours must live charmed lives ;-) Our 1990 AVON 14' searider with a 40
Evinrude is still going strong and has but one patch. It has been used as a
tug boat, push boat, rescue boat and just plain dinghy. We sold it to a guy
who just lets it sit in the Caribbean sun and it stays inflated waiting for
its next run.

We had a 12' Caribe with a 15 Yamaha before this and that one is still being
used daily.

We have an AB VST 4.7 currently with a 60 Merc and wouldn't trade it for any
hard boat. No way, no how. It was used by the local kids sailing school on
weekends for two years which is very tough duty on boats.

BTW, we tow all our boats. Most recently, the AB was towed 600 miles to
Venezuela and is about to repeat that trip backwards. Our biggest fear is
banditos. They love big RIB's and even love big OB's more :-(

We do have a set of chaps for the AB in bright yellow. Both so we can see it
behind us at night and hope to deter the thief's from taking something so
noticeable. As a side benefit it keeps the tubes out of the sun.

As always YMMMV


Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
Puerto La Cruz
Venezuela