T&T: Yacht tenders, inflatables, ribs, dinghy's & lifts

[Pascal Gademer]

you dind't say what kind of boat you have which will determine what you can 
carry.

my story is simple : i never found the ideal tender so i built my own :-) 
actually i built two.  the first one was just a quick frankenstein job using 
a pair of old hobie hulls cut to 14' just in time for Columbus Day regatta. 
it was a little crude but the design worked great so i decided to build 
another one, 13' instead of 14 which was sticking out a little on top of the 
boat,  from scratch using divinicell core

I'm still tweaking it but we've been using it for a couple of months now and 
it's really changed how we use the "big" boat and greatly increased our 
"enjoyment". We use it to go to hard to reach sandbars just to hang out for 
a while, relax, snorkel, whatever...  a whole new dimension to our boating.

in my opinion, the "perfect" tender needs to be ultra stable and capable of 
LEGALLY carrying the same number of people that can sleep on the big boat... 
otherwise what do you do ?  leave some of your friends behind when you go 
gunkholing ?  in our case, that's 6  plus a cooler and the snorkeling gear 
and "stuff"...

some say that a hard dink is hard to handle, tie up and lift on board. 
hasn't been my experience so far. It takes me one to two minute to launch 
and retrieve it from the hardtop.  When anchored, we tie it up along side 
near the stbd stern when the crane drops it and step on it from the 
swimplatform.  I use two large fenders and that's all the protection we 
need. When we tie up to a bulkhead or dock, i dont' worry about it...  the 
rub rail protect it enough.  I've got remote steering and control, nav 
lights, horn, bilge pump, etc...  it's like a real boat.  The side hulls are 
great to lie on and get tan, or to sit on sideways to interact with the rest 
of the crew... but they also provide a ton of floatation and stability : I 
can stand at any corner and it stays reasonably flat and very stable.

the crane is the basic crane found on most hatts of that vintage...  not the 
fancy marquipt but it works fine...  i dont' lauch it inrough water so 
banging against the boat isnt' a issue, the rub rail is enough in calm 
waters otherwise a couple of fenders will do the trick.

couple of pics...
http://www.sandbarhopper.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/normal_P1010099.jpg
http://www.sandbarhopper.com/boats/pics/h13-l5.jpg

bottom line ... whatever you choose, think long and hard and evaluate all 
your options. the right tender greatly enhance your experience.

pascal
miami,fl
70 hatteras 53my

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Tucknott" <katuck214 at mchsi.com>

> We are in the market for one of the types of tenders, along with a lift. 
> We
> have been looking at the Freedom Lift from Michigan, but really have not
> settled on the type of dinghy.