ultimate tender

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giraffehappy

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Next question: Does a light, small (9-10'), rowable, sailing tender exist? Has anybody tried a Skiffgig, and was it any good? Apparently if we get a snappy rib it will just get nicked and be a constant worry in the Carribbean(sp?) so we have been advised to get a knackered fibreglass rowing/sailing tender. Other options have been Walker 10, and Stowaway dinghy. Anybody tried these?
Thanx.

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to avoid nicking of dinghies in the caribbean, make 'em look scruffy. a few odd patches,pref in different colours, paint the hood of the outboard with woolworths paint but above all get a good heavy wire strop & padlock to lock the motor to the dinghy and the dinghy to the dock. the strop needs to be the length of the boat plus at leatst 3m so you can still lock it when you can't get close to the dock for other boats.

a rigid dinghy is a bit of a pain when you're loading shopping etc. inflatables are generally more stable. i would avoid a walker bay as the freeboard is pretty low and it can get choppy out there. i always fancied a sailing tender but in reality you wouldn't use the sails often. most anchorages are in the lee of the islands so what wind there is tends to be fluky and sometimes quite fierce. a planing dinghy with a reasonable sized motor will stand you in better stead when you want to go exploring.

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definately a RIB, we didn't here of any stolen where we were last season so it doesn't happen that often, get a big cable (next size up from the made up ones) we had 8mm made up with eyes at each end big enough to pass the eyes through, it looked pretty silly on our old Zodiac but we were planning on buying a rib and ran out of cash! Hoist them up on a spin halyard at night if you havn't got davits, but still lock them. A tatty canvas cover over the tubes sems a good idea, protects them as well.


<hr width=100% size=1>Oh ye who have your eyeballs vexed and tired feast them upon the wideness of the sea
 
Think the scruffy ones go just as quick as the smart ones! At least you are losing less.

A decent rigid dinghy can be rowed easily, that saves losing an outboard as well. But oars also need to be padlocked on when the dinghy is left.

Odd how bad the culture is in the West Indies in this respect, whether its locals or other yachties. In the Canaries and Azores, dinghies can be left with impunity.

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I think you mean the swifgig - see swifgig.com. I obviously think they're brilliant (because I sell them) but I don't know that many other forumites have had a chance to try them. We'll be at Southampton for a chat anyway.

<hr width=100% size=1>Sarah & Pip

www.greatlittleboats.com
UK & Ireland distributors of Swifgig
 
we had our oars stolen in Flores (Azores) this summer - so i amnot sure the Azores are any different from any other part of the wrold in this respect.

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thanks team. I still haven't decided what sort of tender to get and time is running out....NB How do you padlock oars? Do they have to have holes drilled in them?

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to padlock oars to a rigid dinghy you used to be able to buy a metal device shaped like 2 'J's back to back. it traps the oars and goes through a hole in the twart where you padlock it.

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giraffehappy said:
Next question: Does a light, small (9-10'), rowable, sailing tender exist? Has anybody tried a Skiffgig, and was it any good? Apparently if we get a snappy rib it will just get nicked and be a constant worry in the Carribbean(sp?) so we have been advised to get a knackered fibreglass rowing/sailing tender. Other options have been Walker 10, and Stowaway dinghy. Anybody tried these?
Thanx.

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Click to expand...
Abigail said:
I think you mean the swifgig - see swifgig.com. I obviously think they're brilliant (because I sell them) but I don't know that many other forumites have had a chance to try them. We'll be at Southampton for a chat anyway.

<hr width=100% size=1>Sarah & Pip

www.greatlittleboats.com
UK & Ireland distributors of Swifgig
Click to expand...
I'm looking for a Swifgig dinghy mast but cannot find one anywhere. Can you advise/help at all please?
 
Gazzaman1 said:
I'm looking for a Swifgig dinghy mast but cannot find one anywhere. Can you advise/help at all please?
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This thread hasn't been active for more than two decades so I wouldn't hold your breath for a reply from any of the previous posters.

You might find that you can adapt a rig from another small dinghy like an Opti or Topper.
 
giraffehappy said:
Next question: Does a light, small (9-10'), rowable, sailing tender exist? Has anybody tried a Skiffgig, and was it any good? Apparently if we get a snappy rib it will just get nicked and be a constant worry in the Carribbean(sp?) so we have been advised to get a knackered fibreglass rowing/sailing tender. Other options have been Walker 10, and Stowaway dinghy. Anybody tried these?
Thanx.

<hr width=100% size=1>
Click to expand...
 
I was in search of just that, I ended up going with a seahopper. Truth be told it hasn't been the best choice, they just aren't made to be used as daily tenders and it didn't stand up the use. I also didn't use the sailing setup much, sure it was fun and I thought I'd teach my daughter to sail in it, but not worth the extra cost and hassle of carrying the year around. The other issue with the rowing and sailing dinghies is that most of them will not stay afloat if you get much water in them. Which means having to make sure the dinghy is not in the water every time it rains, also not easy to get in and out of from in the water. If you are serious and are already that side you might want to look into a portland pudgy, I whish i'd spent my money on one instead of the seahopper, but shipping to Europe made it unfeasible.
 
There seem to be plenty of folk with tenders that can sail, and will be happy to meet up [as an excuse] to lend you theirs to teach you children. Explore and reprovision/eat ashore with a scruffy old inflatable that can be hoisted to avoid filling with rainwater etc. as others have already intimated.
 
We've used a ply/epoxy tender for several years now as our main dinghy. Great fun to sail, rewarding to row, and carries a ridiculous amount.
It definitely has some drawbacks of course. Firstly, I had to build it, which took three months of evenings and weekends. Although I did enjoy the process and it's very satisfying to use a boat that you've built yourself.
Secondly, it does need a little bit of careful treatment. I'm often use a stern anchor at dinghy docks, and I try not to drag it around on beaches unless they are pure sand. If I get some damage, I'll put some epoxy over the bare wood, and every few months (once or twice a year on average) I'll open the two pack paint and give it a proper touch-up.
Thirdly, it doesn't motor on the plane. This is easily the biggest drawback. If you have a long way to go, the different between 5kt and 15kt is pretty noticable. When you're living aboard full time, your dinghy is your car, and I don't think many of us would put up with a car that had a top speed of 20mph, when everybody else is going at 60mph.

When we changed boats a while back, the new one came with a neat little RIB and 8hp package, which I initially considered selling. But a few months later, it became clear that both dinghies were excellent for their respective purposes. We're fortunate to have a big enough boat to keep both dinghies.
The RIB is obviously much faster, and in most situations it's the easier choice. However a few things have surprised me. It's much easier to damage than I realised, and if you do damage it (scuffed tubes etc) it's virtually impossible to repair. Whereas my wooden dinghy can be made to look brand new again with a few hours work. The RIB is also wetter in some conditions, especially if we're too heavily loaded to get up on the plane. There far less space in the RIB too.

It's nice having both, but in the long run that's a bit of an indulgence. What I'd really like to do is tweak the design of my wooden dinghy a little- flatten off the aft section a bit, exchanging rowing for planing ability, and beef up the structure a bit, to allow it to take a 9.8hp 2 stroke and get up on the plane. But that's a future project.
 
What a golden oldie! A lot of water under the keel since I posted in 2004. My solution - when I was blue-water cruising - like Sea-Change was to carry both a very small home-made plywood rowing dinghy, as well as a small inflatable with a 2hp outboard. This was because of the hassle I'd heard from people who had lost their only dinghy in out-of-the-way anchorages. Actually that did happen to me with my first hard dinghy, which disappeared off the back of the boat in the Turks & Caicos one dark night when I was too lazy (drunk?) to lift it inboard. VERY grateful then for having the backup.

But in practice I rarely used the inflatable. Too much trouble to get out, inflate and then mount and start the outboard. The plywood dinghy could be launched and ready in 30 secs and was a pleasure to row (and so saved more than one item accidentally dropped overboard). The pic is of us coming ashore in it in the Yasawa Islands, Fiji.
 

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