dinghy

[26Xsam]

I have a 2hp 4-stroke honda with a clutch & have had no trouble with it.

When towing it I mout it to the swim step with a small board. Don't know if I would want to have one bigger. Most of the time I must deal with it myself so small & light is better.

My boat is 8'6'' long with slat floor West Marine brand rolls up small enough & again I can handle it myself.

Mark
That little boat shure looks fun.

Sam

[Jack O'Brien]

I have a 2001 Tohatsu 6 HP 4-stroke which works very well. The Nissan and Tohatsu are identical except for the name. Usually, the Tohatsu sells for less. The 4, 5, and 6 HP motors are identical except for the carburator and the price. You can get an optional "alternator" for the 6 HP. Don't know about the 4 & 5 HP but presume could do. Mine came with a 3-gallon external tank, no internal tank.

[Rich Smith]

For those using the 2hp Honda and a zodiac, have you ever found that you needed/wished for more power in windy conditions? I'm trying to decide between the 2 and 5 hp...I really like the lightweight and the air cooling on the 2 but I worry a little that it may not drive the zodiac in windy/choppy conditions...

Any thoughts?

[26Xsam]

I have not had a problem. Most of the time the more wind i'm gong into the slower It can get a little wet when heading into white caps. But still made progress.

Sam

[Frank C]

Probably depends greatly upon which inflatable you have. Soft floors require more power.

[Captain Steve]

my mercury inflatable is 9'6" and has a 3 part solid floor with an inflatable keel underneath. the Honda 2hp pushes us right thru. Never felt the need for more power. Remember the overarching goal for me was the ability to handle it myself...from stowing the motor to lifting it down into the dingy and back up into the mac.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Duane,
I've seen an advertisement for a Honda 4-stroke, air-cooled, 2 horsepower outboard that weighs only ~30 lbs. Would it be worthwhile for your inflatable?

Cost is about $ 900, and the advantage, of course, is that it's a very light weight 4-stroke.

You think thats light or inexpensive, let me tell you about the dinghy motor I just bought for under $200 brand new. It is a little cruise N carry 1.5 HP outboard that only weighs in at 12 lbs, yes, no typo only twelve pounds! The thing is great, even has a neutral position which is usually unheard of in a motor this small. The little kicker is lighter than one of my 3 gallon gas tanks filled with fuel. I have a little 9 foot sailing dinghy that I mostly use to teach the kids rowing and sailing and it pushes that thing around just fine..easily 5 knots with 300+ pounds of crew on board. Of course, it is an air-cooled 2 stroke, but what do you expect for that weight. This company apparently went out of business back in 1988 but as of a couple months ago, one of the partners still had a stock of new ones left and was selling them over on the loudfrog auction site.

I can't vouch for the durability since I just got it, but it seems to be well made. For anyone who is interested, here is a link that someone put up to the owners manual:

http://jvangurp.com/cruise_n_carry.html

[Nelson G. Thomas]

Howdy,

You might want to consider a Walker Bay 8' dinghy. It weighs 71 pounds and will carry two adults. It does cost a bit more at about $650 in the West Marine catalog. I have seen quite a few of these around and the owners seem to like them. Sailing rigs are available for them but spendy.

You might consider building a dinghy. My wife and I built a Devlin Pollywog using stitch and glue techniques which proved very easy. I would say it cost us in the area of $400 to $600 (I didn't keep track but bet it was closer to the $400 mark). It weighs in at 54 pounds and looks and rows great.

Regards,
Nelson

[26Xsam]

Dimitri

I think I have one. Looks like a small weed eater motor & shaft but short with a prop. Uses a choke cable like pull knob to put it into neutral. Didn't know what it was. Picked it up at the swap meet. Did not run. Some did not empty the gass out of the carb and left it for a long time.

If it's like mine it realy goes. My wife won't get in the boat with that motor. I must agree it has been through the mill. There was things missing so I had to rig part of the mount with sheet rubber & hose clamps. Works but don't look verry good.

Once I cleaned it up have not had any trouble with it, as long as you run it out of gas before putting it away.

Sam

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Sam,

If you go to that link I posted, there is a picture of it. Yes, it does have the little cable pull to take it out of gear and the throttle is like off of a moped or something, has a kill switch too. Its pretty cleverly designed, even has an adjustable shaft length, probably between about 12-17 inches. I'm planning to use it on my cheapo little sevylor inflatable too. With the shaft length adjusted up, I'll probably have a 4-6 inch draft with the motor down. On my fiberglass dinghy, I have to have the shaft fully extended which means there is not enough weight in the motor to keep it in the tilted up position. But I just use a little bungy cord to hold it up and out while I'm sailing.

Come to think of it, the guy I bought it from said that they also had a line of weedeaters with the same motor so your comment is probably right on.

[26Xsam]

Dimitri

That's it. The parts that are missind & broken are the adjustable part to raise & lower the motor. The I am also missing the air cleaner so I used a small sponge & taped it on.
Like I said don't look like much but she will push the escape pod just as well as my honda 2hp will. At least I don't notice much differance.
A bungy cord will have to try it. I just hold it down.

Thanks
Sam

[Frank C]

I have an old Zodiac of 2,40 m (about 8 feet) with a 3 Hp outboard (2 stroke) that I am considering to take with us next summer as dinghy. ...(snipped)... possible to have on the top of the cabin, in horizontal (from port to starboard), just after the mast. Did someone try it?

Hello Miquel,
I doubt it would work on my Mac. First, it would not fit between the lifelines. Second, I doubt there is adequate clearance beneath the boom, and even so, it would surely interfere with my Garhauer boom vang. Once in place across the cabin, it would interfere with sheeting the jib, and interfere with access to the mast.

IMO, there are only three options with a dinghy ... stowage 'deflated' somewhere in the cabin, stowage upside-down on the bow, or towing it.

I now have the cheap inflatable from Costco stowed on the aft-berth, under the cockpit. I'd like to try stowing the small Walker Bay hard-shell dinghy on the bow, but this would require rigging a lifting boom about 2 meters long, plus some considerable amount of man-handling to invert it and drag it across the bow lifeline and aboard the bow. The price of performing a test is about $800 (to purchase the dink!) and it might prove simply impractical. This is why it remains on my "futures" list.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

I find that two things work well with the dingy on the bow with my kids. If possible, I store it rolled up crosswise sitting on the hatch and tied at each side to the lifelines. The ropes along the sides of the dingy are easy to tie to the lifelines. When ours is rolled up it's not really round, but is more square and it makes a great seat up on the bow for the kids. Our diny is a slatted bottom 8'6" style.

Even when the dingy is inflated and stored on the bow the bow is still accessable by walking through the dingy. We use the jib halyard to hoist ours up and store it with the transom just in front of the mast in the right side up position. The slatted bottom conforms to the deck contours and you can easily walk in it and even sit on the seat if you want. The kids are able to ride on the bow in the dingy without any problem. It might be harder to do in a hard bottomed dingy with a inflatable keel.

Both of these storage positions get the dingy down on the lower step so you do not have obstructed sight line forward. For a while I stored ours rolled up just forward of the companionway hatch, but it blocked the view forward to much. The same was true when I put it over the front windows just behind the hatch. Perhaps deflated and just folded in half it would work under the boom up toward the mast.

The only bad thing is both of these render the hatch un-useable so the kids have to get to the bow by going forward from the cockpit rather than poping out the hatch.