Sailing tender - does anyone use one?

[mrming]

We're moored on the other side of a tidal river. When the tide is running hard it can be very hard work to row. I have a plastic tender with a small outboard, but the whole thing is a bit of a faff by the time I've got the outboard out of the shed and lugged the whole lot down a long pontoon to launch.

I've started wondering about having a sailing tender. There are some old threads on this, but they are more focused on a boat you can carry on deck. We only have a small boat and may occasionally tow the tender locally, but other that that it will either be in the dinghy park or tied to our mooring while we're off sailing.

My requirements would be:

Unstayed rig which fits in the boat
Light enough for a reasonably fit person to lug up and down a long pontoon
Room enough for two adults and a little 'un
Relatively high freeboard and good stability
Tough and low maintenance

My thinking is that I can keep it on a launching trolley, right side up with a cover on, the sail on the boom / mast and the rudder and centreboard in the boat. Whip the cover off, stick the mast up and away I go. The club have a rack for launching trollies near the ramp so I wouldn't have to lug the trolley back up to the dinghy park every time.

Does anyone else do this?

Has anyone suggestions for a suitable craft?

The Walker Bay boats etc that cost a large proportion of the value of the big boat are out. Nothing wooden / flimsy (e.g. Mirror). Budget £300 say.

PS: I also might sneak out for a sail in said tender when the big boat's out for the winter...

 

[DanTribe]

We have a Y-Emma with lug sail rig. Great fun to sail in the evening round an anchorage, but if you want to get to a specific point at a specific time, the chances are it will be dead up wind and tide, no chance. Also 2 adults max [unsafe] load.
Also when sailing, the passenger and load carrying capacity are seriously affected.
The Y-Emma was supposed to be able to use a standard windsurfer rig, but I've never been able to figure that out. There may be some potential in trying that?
A mirror might fit your requirements.
Dinghy and outboard is the simplest solution I'm afraid.
What about Dylan's duck punt solution?

 

[lw395]

We've thought about it, ie talked rubbish on the subject towards closing time.
We felt we'd want a tender that made reasonable progress, so no slower than a mirror.
Also needed to be stable on a mooring and light to pull up the slip.
I'm not sure unstayed rig is the best, we were thinking of a gunter like a mirror, that can be dropped while on the mooring, and has the weight low enough to be OK on the mooring in light weather with the mast left up.
I think it is largely a matter of finding the right stuff secondhand.

 

[seumask]

We use a Gull dinghy at our sailing club to get out to the boat on a mooring 70% of the time. It's billeted at the club with the mast up just like the rest of the dinghy's, when we are using it as a tender we usually use the outboard, however and I often use if for a sneaky sail, like Saturday afternoon, it was glorious and much more enticing than scraping off the antifoul! IMHO most tenders that sail , don't do it very well, but some sailing dinghy's are good tenders, the mark 3 gull with rubber rubbing strip is great and often found for less than £500. This one http://sailingdinghies.apolloduck.co.uk/display.phtml?aid=330431 is a steal.

 

[mrming]

The Gull looks very nice but I really need the mast to fit in the boat.

The reason for this is that the club charges separately for tenders and sailing dinghies. If it has a flat cover on it with all the stuff inside, I can get away with calling it a tender. Otherwise I have to pay almost twice as much to store it as a sailing dinghy.

The Dabbler looks tough as old boots - any idea how much it weighs? Would it manage to sail against 1.8 knots of tide? I won't be in a hurry but I'd like to get there eventually.

I know the Mirror well having raced them as a kid. The wooden ones are too flimsy for this particular purpose and the GRP ones either too heavy or too expensive. It's also a bit larger than I would really like. The Y Emma also looks very cute but I'm looking for a plastic fantastic in this case.

Something a bit like the Gull but with a gunter rig or sprit / lugsail would be ideal. 8 to 10 feet would be ideal size.

 

[Blueboatman]

A forumite was kind enough to sell me a aluminium nesting dinghy with lugsail rig. It is a dream.

Unfortunately they no longer are made seemingly..

Worth having a grab-box or sommat waterproof to put yer phone, keys camera etc in and then you can sail it like an idiot teen too on blustery days. To say it gets used is like saying food is useful. Everyone wants to borrow it and comes back ear-to-ear grinning

 

[seumask]

The Mark 1 Gull is a gunter rig like the mirror, if you can find a spare rig then you will be sorted. alternatively a old Mirror rig would I'm sure be fine. You could conver the existing rig by cutting it off at the shrouds, however that would be sacrilege in my opinion. We have the same cost storage issue, however I think the difference is worth it.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I'm hoping to convert my old dinghy - a 7'6" Jack Holt Dittyboat - into a sailing tender this winter. I am hoping to find an old Optimist rig for the flappy bit, but if I can't it'll be some sort of lugsail.

How about a Laser Bug? Built in wheels and handles, seem quite stable and they sell second hand here for well under a thousand.

 

[Kelpie]

A forumite was kind enough to sell me a aluminium nesting dinghy with lugsail rig. It is a dream.

Unfortunately they no longer are made

Sounds interesting, any more info?

 

[mrming]

I'm hoping to convert my old dinghy - a 7'6" Jack Holt Dittyboat - into a sailing tender this winter. I am hoping to find an old Optimist rig for the flappy bit, but if I can't it'll be some sort of lugsail.

How about a Laser Bug? Built in wheels and handles, seem quite stable and they sell second hand here for well under a thousand.

It actually looks like a really cool little boat. £700 is the cheapest I can find one for though, which is way over my budget. The outboard bracket is a further £100 too. I will be garotted if I spend £800 replacing our perfectly serviceable tender.

 

[ShinyShoe]

Have to say I'm far from convinced with a sailing tender.

Big fan of sailing dinghies.

Big fan of fast rigging sailing dinghies.

Few really light ones sit well on moorings if it gets rough. You'll need to drop a sail, roll it secure it and stow it before you leave your mooring. Easy on a slipway. Harder from above on the yacht or from within a small boat while it wobbles on a mooring.

Then you have to reverse it all to go home at the end of the day.

A 7'6" tender would probably sit 3 adults with an OB? A 7'6 sailing boat with its mast will struggle with 2 adults either for speed or for space...

 

[Ru88ell]

I'm going to make one of these:

 

[Lakesailor]

Light enough for a reasonably fit person to lug up and down a long pontoon
Room enough for two adults and a little 'un
Relatively high freeboard and good stability

None of these three fit together in one boat.
I had a great grp tender about 8ft.
I fitted fitted my Heron rig on it for a lark. It did have a dagger board so someone had thought it worth sailing in the past. It was cramped and so tender it defied belief.

 

[Hadenough]

I'm going to make one of these:

I absolutely hate rigid tenders after having one virtually sink on me in a squall --- BUT I rather like this one. Love the concept of building it then, sawing it in half!

 

[FullCircle]

There is a very good reason why I take a sharp intake of breath and bought a Walker Bay 8 with inflatable tubes.

It works, brilliantly, especially now I have fitted a bowsprit and Laser Pico jib. (total conversion cost around £65)

 

[Ru88ell]

Dylan of this forum, not Dylan Winter, has the stock Eastport Pram, and it looks fantastic. My issues are a father with replacement knees, and a wife who won't sit on an inflatable. My father needs a more solid platform to climb aboard, and my wife needs to 'sit in', not 'sit on'. So I'm sure this is the solution for me, since I should also be able to fit it in the back of the car.

 

[mrming]

None of these three fit together in one boat.
I had a great grp tender about 8ft.
I fitted fitted my Heron rig on it for a lark. It did have a dagger board so someone had thought it worth sailing in the past. It was cramped and so tender it defied belief

Maybe I should pony up for a cheap sailing dinghy like the Gull and keep my existing tender setup. The problem is I'll talk myself into a Laser and be out racing before I know it.

The idea of this is something for pottering which isn't going to eat money (the actual boat does that). If it was okay for one person to sail in a leisurely fashion and could also perform as a tender without the rig (using oars / outboard) then that would probably fit the bill.

We have a Bic 245 at the moment so we're not exactly lounging in acres of space as it is.

 

[FWB]

Dylan of this forum, not Dylan Winter, has the stock Eastport Pram, and it looks fantastic. My issues are a father with replacement knees, and a wife who won't sit on an inflatable. My father needs a more solid platform to climb aboard, and my wife needs to 'sit in', not 'sit on'. So I'm sure this is the solution for me, since I should also be able to fit it in the back of the car.

.
I'm looking forward to seeing it Ru88ell, a Torqeedo outboard will complete the project

 

[JumbleDuck]

It actually looks like a really cool little boat. £700 is the cheapest I can find one for though, which is way over my budget. The outboard bracket is a further £100 too. I will be garotted if I spend £800 replacing our perfectly serviceable tender.

I know what you mean. I'd love to buy one as an occasional tender, but although the £895 I'd have to spend locally is quite reasonable, I just can't justify it to the exchequer.

 

[snowleopard]

I built this.

Bears a striking resemblance to a Mirror. Rows well, very light, wheel at the back so no trolley needed. With a una rig it should sail pretty well. Cost of materials around £250 though I spent as much again giving it a Kevlar skin so it's bulletproof.