What do you always carry in the tender and how?

Always have a 1l spare fuel can since the discussion on here. The 2.5hp has 1l too so means we can get home in most situations. Sometimes carry an anchor and line. I don't like leaving much in the tender so don't take anything I won't need since I'm only going up the harbour.
 
Elessar said:
So start a trend of doing it properly.
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Why? It's good fun meeting the policia maritima in the dark, they often run without lights, large black ribs, everyone in dark uniforms, balaclavas and guns :)

Fitting nav lights to a <3m inflatable would be the quickest way to ruin night vision which we need, following the channels through the salt flats on way back to the mooring.
 
Graham376 said:
Why? It's good fun meeting the policia maritima in the dark, they often run without lights, large black ribs, everyone in dark uniforms, balaclavas and guns :)

Fitting nav lights to a <3m inflatable would be the quickest way to ruin night vision which we need, following the channels through the salt flats on way back to the mooring.
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Selective rule following then. That’s up to you. Bet you moan when others break the rules you don’t want them to break.
 
Oars and the pump, thats it. There’ll be a phone, a torch and a knife in my pocket. Bearing in mind we draw 40cm, our tender journeys may be significantly shorter than most of you.
 
I have told this story before but worth repeating. An elderly couple moored their yacht at Rottnest and went ashore for an evening in inflatable tender. When returning to the boat a short distance under oars in dark, the wind was off the island shore and got stronger as they approached the boat. (out of the shelter of the land). They apparently missed catching hold of the yacht and found they were unable to row against the wind. They were blown out into the 15Nm or so of channel and perished. Dinghy found later, one body recovered, one never found. An anchor would have saved them. An EPIRB would have saved them. Flares might have saved them. A flashlight might have saved them. ol'will
 
William_H said:
I have told this story before but worth repeating. An elderly couple moored their yacht at Rottnest and went ashore for an evening in inflatable tender. When returning to the boat a short distance under oars in dark, the wind was off the island shore and got stronger as they approached the boat. (out of the shelter of the land). They apparently missed catching hold of the yacht and found they were unable to row against the wind. They were blown out into the 15Nm or so of channel and perished. Dinghy found later, one body recovered, one never found. An anchor would have saved them. An EPIRB would have saved them. Flares might have saved them. A flashlight might have saved them. ol'will
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The thing that isn‘t in, but on, our tender, every trip, might have saved them too. Any kind of inflatable boat is notoriously difficult to row. I would row only if the engine broke down. But as it's a Yamaha 2hp 2 stroke, it will outlast to cockroaches after the Bomb has dropped.
 
ylop said:
I see a lot of tenders motoring ashore with nothing more than their credit card. Now the fact I see them means its probably a relatively busy area and a breakdown or similar would not be a disaster but I suspect those people do the same when motoring ashore for a BBQ or to walk the dogs etc in the middle of nowhere. So it got me wondering am I being paranoid with:

Small 0.75kg anchor and about 15m of 6mm rope.
VHF Handheld
Multitool including knife.
Oars
Bailer
Some magic tape that patches anything even when wet
A spare cheap cagoule that lives in the dinghy bag - because sods law it rains if you don't have one. I just carry one big one - not one for everyone.
Spare shear pin for o/board, spare kill cord clip and handful of zip ties, a roll of insulating tape, and a couple of big thick bin bags (for anything acquired ashore that needs to stay dry).
The dinghy pump.

Everyone wears L/Jackets. Helm wears kill cord.

I don't have flares or PLB. I will usually have my phone anyway.
Am I missing anything - I used to have WD40 and some other stuff (a tiny first aid kit with plasters and wipes) but it just got rusty etc. Had anyone got a really neat way of carrying their stuff? The scruffy bag it lives in is probably going to need replaced soon - can't live in the dinghy as it will be folder up each trip. Or am I being overkill and everyone gets by without - I've never actually needed anything in a life of death situation but there have been times where it saved a trip back to the boat for a tool etc.
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The only thing I carry if in a remote area is oars and and all round white light at night. The light is very bright and mounted on top of the engine.
We leave green lights on under the sprayhood if going out in the evening. It makes it easier to spot the boat when coming back as the whole sprayhood shines green.
 
William_H said:
I have told this story before but worth repeating. An elderly couple moored their yacht at Rottnest and went ashore for an evening in inflatable tender. When returning to the boat a short distance under oars in dark, the wind was off the island shore and got stronger as they approached the boat. (out of the shelter of the land). They apparently missed catching hold of the yacht and found they were unable to row against the wind. They were blown out into the 15Nm or so of channel and perished. Dinghy found later, one body recovered, one never found. An anchor would have saved them. An EPIRB would have saved them. Flares might have saved them. A flashlight might have saved them. ol'will
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That might depend on the depth of water their boat was anchored in and the scope they carried in the dinghy. I would suggest that the root cause of the inside was the decision to return to the boat given the conditions.
 
90% of engine issues are maintenance related. We put a new starter cord on ours every year. It probably gets up to 200 starts a year, say an average of 2 pulls. It always looks well used when it's taken off.
 
Surely it depends a bit whether you are using the tender to go ashore in a densely populated & boated area (eg lots of SE coast) or, like I often do, onto an entirely uninhabited island with no other boats visible for many miles around (Mealasta, or Shillay, for example, on the West side of the Outer Hebrides). Often nobody been there for weeks before or after.

For the latter I try to remember to bring all three of mobile phone, handheld VHF and PLB - as if something goes wrong ashore or in transit, nobody might know for days or weeks. (NB. Sometimes mobile works on a high point, where VHF hand held is struggling - it varies).
Check fuel before leaving mothership if outboard is important. And have biggish grapple style anchor plus 20 light rope (throwing grapple into a rock cleft can make much easier to get ashore on slippery rocky landings). Always lifejacket.
Don't carry any engine spares or tools, but prepare to (and enjoy) rowing. Been a couple of occasions though when very glad that outboard worked - eg when wind got up and boat was 1/2 mile away due to shallow water (eg Boreray).
 
Like dunedin, many of the places where we go ashore are uninhabited and seldom visited. The one hard and fast thing that we do, is to tether the dinghy once ashore, and tie the oars in. Tethering either with the anchor, or with a line tied to a rock etc. This was a hard learned lesson, when the dinghy once blew away, fortunately further along the shore, and not out to sea. And yes, dunedin, we've landed on these islands too.
 
dunedin said:
Surely it depends a bit whether you are using the tender to go ashore in a densely populated & boated area (eg lots of SE coast) or, like I often do, onto an entirely uninhabited island with no other boats visible for many miles around (Mealasta, or Shillay, for example, on the West side of the Outer Hebrides). Often nobody been there for weeks before or after.
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Maybe. My thought was triggered by seeing people pootling around fairly busy Scottish anchorages with seemingly nothing at all. Now I may be wrong in assuming that people are creatures of habit and if they do that in a busy bay they may do so when in rural isolation. Lets flip the question round - if you were somewhere else, much more populated and motoring ashore to a cafe or on a quest for the ever-elusive gas cylinder, do you remove any of your sensible list of precautions? And when you do arrive in a busy little harbour do you leave it in the boat or lug it round the shops? Personally, I'm much less likely to forget something if its always in the same bag, and I always take that bag even if the shore is really close .
 
In my dinghy there is always a bailer and sponge and a long painter is aways attached. If outboard is fitted always oars. Everything else is added as to where and how far I'm going, other boats nearby, etc.
Like others, the less I leave in the dinghy when left somewhere the better.
 
In France, if you are not further than 300m from a refuge on the coast, then you do not need to carry anything at all. However the tender must have the registration of the mothership on it preceded by the letters AXE (short for annexe / tender).
If you are further than 300m from the coast but less than 300m from the mothership, then you need to carry a buoyancy aid or life jacket for each person. They don't have be worn. And a white light with an autonomy of at least 6 hours.

If you want to go further away from the shore or your boat in your tender (up to two miles from safe haven) then it has to be registered separately and have its own registration number marked on the hull.
In addition you have to have the buoyancy aids, white light, fire extinguisher, manual bailer (e.g. bucket) and towing line. If your tender weighs more than 250kg unladen, then you need an anchor as well. And if the tender is being used in a different country from its registration, then it must fly its national ensign.

In any case, if it has more than 6HP, you need a license to drive it.
 
westernman said:
In France, if you are not further than 300m from a refuge on the coast, then you do not need to carry anything at all. However the tender must have the registration of the mothership on it preceded by the letters AXE (short for annexe / tender).
If you are further than 300m from the coast but less than 300m from the mothership, then you need to carry a buoyancy aid or life jacket for each person. They don't have be worn. And a white light with an autonomy of at least 6 hours.

If you want to go further away from the shore or your boat in your tender (up to two miles from safe haven) then it has to be registered separately and have its own registration number marked on the hull.
In addition you have to have the buoyancy aids, white light, fire extinguisher, manual bailer (e.g. bucket) and towing line. If your tender weighs more than 250kg unladen, then you need an anchor as well. And if the tender is being used in a different country from its registration, then it must fly its national ensign.

In any case, if it has more than 6HP, you need a license to drive it.
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Is that the case anywhere else other than France?
 
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