Looking for small easily stored boat for fishing.

[Boater]

Hello Everyone.

I’m new to these forums, but not to boating, having had a few boats over the years all under 28ft, although nothing for the last couple of years, also hold a PB2 certificate.

I’m looking for your recommendations please.

I’m looking for a safe small boat we can take on holiday with us, when we go caravanning(I know, sorry).
We tow a tourer on our holidays, so not able to tow a boat, but was wondering if there was a boat on the market that would roll up/fold up and go in the boot of my car or on the roof?
Something like a good sized inflatable but not sure about rubber tubes and fishing hook?

I’m looking for something I can hand launch and put in the water and go for a few hours fishing safely with maximum of 3 maybe 4 people.
I have a Yam 4hp 4 stroke engine that maybe of use.

It’s likely it would be used coastally or inland.
New or second hand, but under a budget of £1000.

Many Thanks.
B.

 

[sarabande]

have you considered a Tinker ? The Traveller is excellent and robust, and will stow in car boot or van. Can be lifted by one person(just about )

Some secondhand ones on ebay or TOC>

http://www.tinkerowners.co.uk/

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sailboat-Tink...s_ET?hash=item2a009c55ad&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14


I have a Traveller which get used for all sorts of rough expeditions. Highly resilient to multi-teenager use, fishing, sailing, o/board. You can put a piece of old sail over the tubes when fishing to prevent any hook contact.

 

[gjgm]

bombard,avon,honwave,quicksilver all do pump-ups with aluminium or inflatable floors that (should go)rigid,sizes up to 4m odd. Weights from 35-75+kilos, as a rough guide.
Have a look on boatsandoutboards.co.uk under "inflatables". Just the larger ones do take up quite alot of space, rolled up..as a guide, half of a car boot with the back seats down, sort of thing....

 

[gordmac]

These look interesting:
http://www.porta-bote.com/

 

[AndieMac]

Gordmac

They do look interesting.....does anyone know anything about them personally?

 

[lovezoo]

I don´t know about the portabote, but I had one of these when we lived by the river in Richmond (London).

http://www.seahopperfoldingboats.com/

The thing folds down flat (like a surfboard), and unfolds into something like a mirror dinghy and was suprisingly solid in use. The version I had could be rowed, powered by an outboard or sailed and was a great little boat.

In the end I sold it to someone who was going to carry it around in their motorhome, similar idea to the OPs.

 

[Boater]

have you considered a Tinker ? The Traveller is excellent and robust, and will stow in car boot or van. Can be lifted by one person(just about )

Some secondhand ones on ebay or TOC>

http://www.tinkerowners.co.uk/

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sailboat-Tink...s_ET?hash=item2a009c55ad&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14


I have a Traveller which get used for all sorts of rough expeditions. Highly resilient to multi-teenager use, fishing, sailing, o/board. You can put a piece of old sail over the tubes when fishing to prevent any hook contact.

Thats very interesting thanks for the idea.

B.

 

[Boater]

bombard,avon,honwave,quicksilver all do pump-ups with aluminium or inflatable floors that (should go)rigid,sizes up to 4m odd. Weights from 35-75+kilos, as a rough guide.
Have a look on boatsandoutboards.co.uk under "inflatables". Just the larger ones do take up quite alot of space, rolled up..as a guide, half of a car boot with the back seats down, sort of thing....

Thats the best idea I've seen to date, I was looking at the Honda Inflatables last night as was trying to decide which would be better, Air floor or Alu floor?
Alu floor T40-AE 4m is 92kg, would that be too heavy to throw about, in and out of the car, and onto the roof, the T38-IE 3.8m air floor weighs 53kg which is better, but not sure if the air floor would be as good.

Also do you think these big inflatables would be too big for my little 4hp O/B?

Whats your thoughts about fishing out of them also?

B.

 

[AndieMac]

Thanks Lovezoo...these seem to be a more substantial dinghy, but look heavier (ply) than the portebote (plastic).

The bow sits up higher (seahopper) and looks a bit drier than the portebote.

 

[KCook]

Here in the USA it's sea kayaks that have become a huge hit for car topping -

http://www.brighton-canoes.co.uk/kayaks-sea.htm

If it has a motor, in my view it needs a trailer.

Kelly Cook

 

[Cliveshep]

We habitually take a 4m x 96kg inflatable that takes up to 30hp, with a Yammie 20 and a Mariner 3.3, along with a gennie and pump and all the bits. The inflatable has a ply panel floor with an inflatable keel giving a "V" hull. It goes well with four and is rated for 8 but the size gives a little more confidence when it gets "bumpy". We had a purpose made aluminium trailer made so we can inflate it and mount engines etc and tow to the slip or beach. We have a Pajero 4 x 4 7-seater, with a h/duty roof rack on which we put the (full) 30 litre fuel tank, the floor boards and whatever else we need for caravanning. The dinghy goes on the van's floor, probably 60kgs of it in a bag 5ft long x 15inches wide by 2ft high - so it's not small! The trailer separates into crossbar/suspensions/wheels and draw-bar, the axle bit goes on the back or front bunk across the van, the drawbar up the length of the van. The Mariner and the gennie go in the van, the Yammie in the back of the car.

However............................

It is a lot of weight for both car and van and even with a 4 x 4 I strongly suspect we are well over the van's MGW limit if not the car's. In future I'm thinking about making a run out before hand towing the boat and coming back for the van unless I can persuade SWMBO to tow with her car (unlikely). That way we can abandon the inflatable idea and get a proper fishing boat more suited to the task. We always find hooks getting dangerously close to the tubes no matter what we do, and that is with a big dinghy, God knows what would happen in a small dinghy.

 

[AndieMac]

The caravaners out here buy the 'cartopper' alloy dinghies, usually between 8 -10 feet and invert them on the roof rack (obviously bow first). Some use rollers or poly pipe on the aft/trailing edge of the rack, so they only have to lift the bow up and on to the rack, then slide it forward.

The V nose punts are popular, because small light alloy conventional shaped dinghies are a little unstable, where as the punts have the advantage of (flatter bottomed) stability and the V nose helps with the head sea ride.

 

[Boater]

We habitually take a 4m x 96kg inflatable that takes up to 30hp, with a Yammie 20 and a Mariner 3.3, along with a gennie and pump and all the bits. The inflatable has a ply panel floor with an inflatable keel giving a "V" hull. It goes well with four and is rated for 8 but the size gives a little more confidence when it gets "bumpy". We had a purpose made aluminium trailer made so we can inflate it and mount engines etc and tow to the slip or beach. We have a Pajero 4 x 4 7-seater, with a h/duty roof rack on which we put the (full) 30 litre fuel tank, the floor boards and whatever else we need for caravanning. The dinghy goes on the van's floor, probably 60kgs of it in a bag 5ft long x 15inches wide by 2ft high - so it's not small! The trailer separates into crossbar/suspensions/wheels and draw-bar, the axle bit goes on the back or front bunk across the van, the drawbar up the length of the van. The Mariner and the gennie go in the van, the Yammie in the back of the car.

However............................

It is a lot of weight for both car and van and even with a 4 x 4 I strongly suspect we are well over the van's MGW limit if not the car's. In future I'm thinking about making a run out before hand towing the boat and coming back for the van unless I can persuade SWMBO to tow with her car (unlikely). That way we can abandon the inflatable idea and get a proper fishing boat more suited to the task. We always find hooks getting dangerously close to the tubes no matter what we do, and that is with a big dinghy, God knows what would happen in a small dinghy.

Clive, your setup seem to be what I am looking at, but a couple of questions, do you feel the dinghy is too heavy to man-handle, and do you think my little 4 stroke 4hp yammie would be too small for a 4m inflatable?

B.

 

[Cliveshep]

Clive, your setup seem to be what I am looking at, but a couple of questions, do you feel the dinghy is too heavy to man-handle, and do you think my little 4 stroke 4hp yammie would be too small for a 4m inflatable?

B.

Well, as I said the complete dinghy weighs in a 96kgs so you aren't going to be carrying it anywhere far. Having said that, I put it together on my own, using a pump and generator I find those essential as it's a big boat for a foot pump. I then lift up the bow and prod the trailer under it with my foot. A bit of "humping" gets it all lined up and I can then mount engines and lash the lot down. What I did find was that it had a trendency to try and slip off the trailer on the road so using ties on each of the bow and quarter rings leading back and forwards to eyes on the trailer kept it in place as well as ratchet straps around boat and trailer. 4 hp will push it, but slowly, my 3.3 Mariner or the alternative 3.5 Tomos manage adequately when I've had problems at sea with the 20hp Yamaha. However, once afloat with 4 it feels safe and steady and roomy and that's important. Going small because it's light and easy to move around ashore are secondary to safety afloat in my opinion.

Manhandling packed is more a question of dragging or tipping the bag end over end through the caravan door, the floor boards go on the roof rack (they are 4ft x 2ft max) on their own. The boat was bought last year from E-bay, it's polyurethane, takes 8-men and 30hp max, the electric pump did not come with it and pumps it right up, no need for top up with the foot pump. I haven't seen anything like it on there at present. One point I will stress is to get one with the full, solid, transom. I tried one of the Navigator boats with an outboard bracket and it squashed the tube right in when the engine was pushing, I got rid of that one very quickly! The larger full solid transom has no such issues and the sponson tubes stick behind it far enough to make flipping less of a risk as well.

 

[Boater]

Thankyou clive.

The one I've found is the Honda T40-AE 4m, like this:HonWave 4M
Prices are around, the £900 mark for boat only, I'm not looking for a package, what did you pay of Ebay?

Can you recommend any others under £1k?

B.

 

[Cliveshep]

Thankyou clive.

The one I've found is the Honda T40-AE 4m, like this:HonWave 4M
Prices are around, the £900 mark for boat only, I'm not looking for a package, what did you pay of Ebay?

Can you recommend any others under £1k?

B.

Under £450 from memory, I believe it was a Chinese imported boat. Apart from being heavy it's tough and good in lumpy water. I can't reccomend anything else as this was only my second venture into a new inflatable, I can reccomend NOT buying the Navigator or indeed anything with a rounded tail and a bracket. Mine has 4 tanks plus keel tank by the way, the Honda only 3.

As an afterthought, it planes jolly well with 20hp and 4-up