MacGregorSailors.com

KootsChewt wrote:We use a Walker Bay 8' rigid and we have the inflatable "water wings" for it as well.

What are water wings?

It's an inflatable donut that's an option from the company. It fits around the circumference of the dinghy so as to increase stability.

Ray

a new kind:

http://boatcollar.com.au/home/fitting/f ... r-tenders/

DownSouth

Does anyone have success using a canoe as a tender, or pulling a canoe behind the boat as a way to explore once anchored up?

kadet wrote: ↑Tue Jul 04, 2017 6:16 am I have 2 about to get a third



I want something light like a kayak but that can be stored in the davits and powered by the 2 stroke.
So soon to be No 3: which will be as Goldilocks said just right Is a 19kg poly 2.4 meter Finns Castaway cary capacity is 180kg so will carry me and one other or a load of supplies.

Did you get the Finn Castaway? How is it? Does it fit under the cockpit in the double berth?

Down South

vizwhiz wrote: ↑Sat Jul 08, 2017 9:10 pm Does anyone have success using a canoe as a tender, or pulling a canoe behind the boat as a way to explore once anchored up?

I used our Grumman 17 foot aluminum canoe as a tender for the first few trips on our Mac 26 X, back in 2002, during our first season with the boat. Very steep learning curve. Simply rigging a line between the bow eyelet of the canoe and a stern stanchion on the Mac resulted in the canoe slaloming back and forth, regardless of how slow we went. At speeds of 5 or 6 knots the canoe regularly swerved outside the wake, threatening to capsize and swamp. I then set up a line behind the steering seat, tied to the stern stanchions, with a loop in the middle, so I could pull from the center of the Mac. Helped a very little, but not enough. Then I rigged a towing bridle around the bow of the canoe, with the tow line attached to the underside of the line, down by the keel of the canoe. It tended to pull off until I tied additional lines between the towing bridle and the canoe thwarts, so it couldn't slide off. Final trick was to add about 50 lbs worth of firewood rounds to the forward area of the canoe. All these efforts resulted in the canoe tracking within the bounds of the wake most of the time. Definitely couldn't run at anything close to full throttle with any degree of confidence, though. And then there was the problem of slowing down. Any abrupt reduction in speed by the Mac resulted in the canoe attempting to violently ram the stern, because it slips through the water so easily. Being totally stopped even posed problems, since the canoe loved to rub against the side of the Mac, leaving copious dark aluminum streaks on the Mac's hull. I had to set out fenders and raft the canoe up to the boat to keep things under control. Get the picture? Nice to have a canoe along, but not worth the hassle, based on my experience.

We use a 10 foot plastic dinghy for Cuttyhunk as it’s rocky. It’s about 10 years old now and has had zero maintenance

I car top it. I’m too old to do it myself but my 180 pound college Athlete can lift it with one arm, while she uses the other arm to tear limbs off annoying boys and wood chipper them.