Best sailing tender?

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Tarka1

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Me Whittington (Staffs); Boat Porthmadog
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I'm thinking of buying a sailing dinghy to use as a tender and to give me the opportunity to teach the kids (6 & 8 years old) to sail. The Mirror dinghy stands out as being quite suitable but I would like suggestions of possible alternatives.
Looking to spend £300 max and it needs to be less than 11' long as it will be stored with the other tenders in the council dinghy storage area in Porthmadog.
 
I've got a Kontender from seahopper, but its well over your price, unless you can get a secondhand one on ebay. (oops - didn't mean that to sound so posh!) Had a smaller one in the family years ago - fantastic. The big advantage to me is it folds flat on the side decks when going long distance and it takes a minute to assemble, and dosn't sail badly either.
 
I'd stick with the Mirror idea. For that price and a good sail there isn't much else. GRP would be good, but anything longer than 11foot will be a bit heavy and anything around 8/9ft will be a shite sail.
 
Walker walker walker....It will tow,it will serve as a liferaft ,it will sail,it looks ok and its tough.And you can hoick it aboard and stow it on the foredeck/across the transom..the kids will love you !
Best of all..its grp =maintenance free
 
The Mirror is an excellent beginners sailing dinghy but I question its use as a tender, or any other sailing dinghy for that matter, on the grounds that the space for stowing gear is limited by the built in buoyancy.

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We had two Mirror dinghies for 5 or 6 years and they are great boats on lakes and in a tideway too- tough, buoyant, can be rowed too.
But these are not suitable in my opinion for small children for a number of reasons.
1. very buoyant, so if capsized they float high out of the water and it is a difficult task to get up on the daggerboard without considerable upper body strength- my two youngsters couldn't do it until they were tall enough and strong enough at about 11- 12 years old.
2. They may be small but carry a lot of sail which, without ratchet blocks exert a lot of pull on young arms.
3. They are very heavy for a tender and you will wish you had something lighter once you've pulled it up the slipway a few times- especially if you must up-end it to store it in a rack

As for alternatives, the Optimist dinghy is an excellent starter for children, but too lightly constructed and too small for a tender and expensive too.

The Topper is popular with children too. Tough, light and the sail size is easily reduced- but useless as a tender.

Would the PBO Pup do, I wonder?

I reckon you would be better off treating your need for a tender as a separate issue from the the childrens needs
 
When I was a kid we had an 11ft Gull, an Ian Procter design, very beamy and stable, loads of buoyancy, very difficult to capsize. Mast can be stepped in two positions, one for sailing with jib, one for without. Our was gunter rigger so no long spars to clutter the deck.

Brilliant little boat.
Saw one on eBay recently.
 
It may not be quite big enough as a tender but as a sailing dinghy for younger children its magic. So if you ever see a decent Prout Puffin buy it!

I've never capsized it but the Mirror is made more difficult to right because it usually inverts.

Keep watching I really ought to sell mine! (Puffin and Mirror)
 
Poole Sprat. roomy and stable as a tender, great little boat for teaching the kids, and sails really well considering the size of the rig. I have taught several kids and four adults to sail in mine over the years.
The mirror is a fantastic boat and I have had three of them but they are no good as a tender and have much less usable room than the sprat which is only 8ft 6ins
 
I've noticed a lot of old tenders have a mast step - even if the rig has long since gone. Not sure how well they sail though. I think you'll find that anything with enough sail area to be interesting will be heavy to use as a tender.

Ours is stored on its transom and after a tiring weekend its no easy job getting it against the rack single handed. Not quick under sail but probably an advantage with my son steering...
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Thanks all for the comments. The intention is for me to be with the kids in the dinghy while they are learning for at least a couple of years (why should they have all the fun....) so the issue of them having to right it if it capsizes isn't really an issue. Another boat I have seen advertised today is a fibrocell 10' dinghy - anybody have any experience of these?
 
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