The Dinghy Thread

[Jeremyvmd]

We have been looking at the nisqually in Kevlar for the weight savings and ability to throw it on the hardtop if need be. It's about 62lbs or so. If you find yourself on the east coast let me know. I would love to check it out in person!

[JT48348]

On further inspection turns out it's a Dyer Dow 9'. I plan to remove the center trunk and glass in a watertight storage compartment forward and aft.

[Jeremyvmd]

You can get factory teak rub rails shipped to your door for the dhow. Is the swing keel still in there?

[JT48348]

My understanding is the factory rubrail runs $300-400.
My plan is to epoxy PVC 1x2" on the inside and outside and paint it. The swing keel is plywood and trashed. I have the lever handle

[Jeremyvmd]

Handle in recent shape? I remember it being 350ish plus shipping. Im watching your resto of that amazing dingy with bated breath

[Sunsetrider]

Last season I bought an older 8-ft fibreglass dink for $200 c/w plastic oars. I haven't had a need for it in local waters (1000 islands) balanced against the hassle of dealing with it. Now that I am considering a cruise I am taking the issue more seriously and need to gather more info. Below are pics of the stern of the boat and a pic of the dinghy which weighs about 80 lbs. according to my bathroom scale. I still need to practice getting into it without falling into the water. My issues:

- do I really need to replace the swim platform (installed by the PO) with a wider one, and if so, how?
- would a Coleman 2.6 hp motor be the appropriate motor?
- has anyone used a Minn Kota trolling motor on this kind of dink? The light weight and low cost appeal. The need to carry and load a battery is a big negative I guess? https://goo.gl/ds28JR
- what sort of harness for towing?

I assume I will need to spring for snap davits. I also imagine that a dinghy will cost fuel by dragging the air while on the platform or the water while being towed. But I already know what it's like being trapped aboard while anchored off.

SwimPlat.jpg

swimdink.jpg

[2manyboats]

To tow or not to tow. After weighing many options and senarios I opted for tow and spent the bucks for a dingy that I could also fish shallow bays and inlets. IMHO The 25 is too small to put a useable skiff on deck, hardtop or swim platform without extending out past the beam. Therfore I chose a nice slightly used 10' walker Bay w/oars. Then orderd the Tube kit; Hyplon (not the pvc) New Tohatsu 6hp. Way too much power, but to get the external tank, you have to buy 5hp+. The 4hp does not include the Tank ($130 option) 6hp with the tank $70 dollars more. 2.5 and 3.5 only have a one liter internal tank.

The dingy tows well with the motor up in 2-3 foot chop. It robs about a knot at 2250rpm. But I can stand up and get in and out with ease, my wife loves the stability. Bump the throttle to 2800 and we are back to 6.8kts.

[DesertAlbin736]

To tow or not to tow...

... that is the question, whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous transom overhang, or to take arms against a sea of davit troubles, and by opposing end them?

Back months ago in earlier posts on this dinghy thread I put up pictures of our Boatex 8 dinghy on snap davits. Well, that dinghy is no more after it tore off the snap davits in rough seas off Nelson Island in Malaspina Strait on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. The wave was so strong it literally ripped out a one to two foot section of the dink's starboard gunn'l where snap davit latch was attached.

IMHO The 25 is too small to put a useable skiff on deck, hardtop or swim platform without extending out past the beam.

Yes, that is the big problem with an A25. I bought a new Gig Harbor 7 ' 11" Nisqually dink from Gig Harbor Boat Works as a replacement for the lost Boatex. But instead of towing or using snap davits I have a set of custom built lifting davits on order from Garhauer. The new dink will still overhang the stern, but the bottom of the dink will be a deck level and not act like a big scoop the next time a big wave comes by. Towing alone would be fine without the davits, but we always trailer our boat in and out of the water, so having to launch a 2nd boat each time would be a big hassle. Better to be on davits.

The Gig Harbor boat is quite a bit "tippier" than the Boatex was, so I'm fashioning a sort of McGyver RID collar by semi-permanently attaching six 8 X 20 "hole through the middle" fenders, three to each side, 37 lbs of flotation each, ie 111 lbs of flotation on each side similar to a RID flotation collar.

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The idea is to have the dink lifted clear of the water something like this...

Macintosh40.jpg

[Sunsetrider]

Then orderd the Tube kit;
The dingy tows well with the motor up in 2-3 foot chop. It robs about a knot at 2250rpm. But I can stand up and get in and out with ease, my wife loves the stability. Bump the throttle to 2800 and we are back to 6.8kts.

That all sounds good - but what is a Tube kit?
And what sort of bridle?

[2manyboats]

Walker Bay has Floation collars which fasten around the gunnel of thier 8' and 10' boats. Check out thier website for pics. They advertize PVC kits, but hypolon kits are available also.

I don't use a bridle. I simply tow off the left aft cleat. The skiff tracks well enough, and when approaching the dock or anchorage it is simpley slow down; grab the painter and shorten the lenght to avoid running over my own line.

Desert Albin I would look at the WB tube kit for your skiff. If you can thru-bolt a strip of wood 1" (1 1/2)x 3/4" outside, under the gunnel, I think the WB tube would work, unless the 8' tube is attached differently then my 10'


Wayne

[DesertAlbin736]

If you look closely at the pic the Gig Harbor dink's vinyl rub rail has a sort of lip all around the edge. My plan for attaching the three fenders to each side is to use 1/4-20 s/s eye nuts through bolted from inside with pan head phillips machine screws (with washers & HDPE backing plates of course) & attach with s/s quick links & snap hook caribiners between each fender and at the ends with a single rope running through the center of all the fenders & snugged up against this lip. Will have to experiment with where to place the eye bolts by making a mockup of plywood & 1 X 2 strip of wood and pick the best location for the eye nuts so the fenders stay in place. The combination of quick link and snap hook attached to eye nuts should extend out close to the 4 inch radius of the fenders, with the ends of the fenders close to each other, a total of about 5 feet long.

I was able to get Polyform 8 X 20 "hole through the middle" fenders from Go2Marine for $40 each. Walker Bay RID tubes sell for $600. So I'm into this for about half the price of Walker Bay tubes. There used to be an outfit called Dinghy Dogs that made universal fit aftermarket flotation collars, but apparently they are out of business.

[Sunsetrider]

So aside from looking a little goofy (and who cares about that?) do these modifications make a significant improvement to the tippy factor? I wonder whether attaching floaty noodles to each side would work. Reducing the cost to mere pennies.

[DesertAlbin736]

So aside from looking a little goofy (and who cares about that?) do these modifications make a significant improvement to the tippy factor?

We shall see, I haven't installed them yet & haven't had the new dinghy out on the lake. Still kind of hot down here in Arizona, only this week down to 96 *F ( 35 * C) from low 100s & haven't got my davits installed on the mother ship yet. I considered using some 5 inch x 48 inch vinyl covered foam pool noodles, but figured those would look cheesy & hard to attach securely and probably wouldn't hold up well. And besides, good fenders can double as, well, fenders. I just got the shipment of carabiner hardware from Go2Marine in yesterday so I have everything needed to complete the job except a round tuit. Three fenders on each side will add about 1.75 cu ft of flotation (pi R sq X length / 1,728 cubic inch per cu ft x 62.4 lbs per cu ft fresh or 64 lbs per cu ft salt). That's 109 lbs of bouyancy in fresh water or 111 lbs in salt water on each side, 222 lbs of total floatation if swamped. That should be plenty. But I did test the dinghy in our pool to see how stable it was (it wasn't very) and barely leaned over and it heeled enough to ship a couple gallons of water over the side and damn near capsized, which our old (Canadian made) Boatex never did. That would not go over too well with the Admiral, since she wanted an inflatable in the first place and I overruled her. Too bad Boatex isn't around any more and used ones are few and far between, I really liked that dinghy. In fact our boat came from Ontario Province, purchased from an estate sale up there in 2001 by the folks up in Idaho that we got the boat from in 2014.

In this photo taken by our cruise mates as we headed up Jervis Inlet in BC, the red inflatable seen in the foreground is actually our old 7 ft 6 inch Achilles that we used to use with our Catalina sailboat & loaned to them for this trip. Nice dinghy, but too small IMO, & besides it has a persistent slow leak that I've not been able to find & patch.

DSCF3532 (1024x768).jpg

My late, great Boatex dinghy, now lying somewhere wrecked & washed up on the rocks or at the bottom of Malaspina channel in BC. I still have the rudder, dagger board, mast and like new sail shown here if anyone is interested.

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[Sunsetrider]

I am eager to learn how you flotation theory works out in practice. My sense of balance seems to suck big time recently.

[DesertAlbin736]

Will let you know how it works as soon as I get to try it out, probably in another month or so. I'm about a week or two away from getting the davits in, then have to install them. By then we should be into some more tolerable fall weather. It's not really out of the 90s and comfortably cool on the lake until after Halloween.