MacGregorSailors.com

Anyone have a tender for their or ?

Inflatable? How long? how heavy?

DownSouth

I have 2 about to get a third

No 1: is a 2.4 metre Silver Marine Air Deck inflatable with a 3.9hp 2 stroke I put it on davits on the back of the , it is heavy almost 40kg and getting the outboard on and off in a chop is a PITA but it can hold 4 medium size adults in a pinch. It is a good work horse just too big for my needs now as I mainly solo. Good for when I have guests along though.

No 2: is a Seaeagle 2 Person inflatable kayak. It is light but big, too big to keep inflated and won't fit in the davits. It is a PITA to inflate and deflate even with a 12v pump. I use it mainly solo or with the wife. Just not as convenient as I thought it would be.

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.

I have an 8.5 foot inflatable that I bought from west marine. It weighs 50 pounds and fits in the included bag. I inflate it with an air mattress battery pump and then finish it off with the included foot air pump. it comes with oars but I use a cheap hanki 2 stroke chineses outboard. it weighs about 25 pounds and is easy to handle but obnoxiously noisy. The outboard is stored on a mount pad on the aft seat options (sold by blue water yachts). the raft can be stored in the cabin on the bench seat in front of the potty. I usually tow the raft without the outboard on it. It is a good place to store crab traps and other things. It tows well at lower speeds. Not a perfect system. But, it works for me.

I feel one of the keys to having the right 'tender' revolves around how you are going to use the boat.



We have a Zodiac Zoom with a wood floor and large tubes. I wouldn't have anything less for the trips we/I have taken. Worst case and we had to leave the Mac in the ocean or a big lake in heavy weather I'd trust it as a life raft. I wouldn't trust most the other options like hard sided dinghy's or kayaks in a similar situation.

If you're sailing is going to be lake or coastal in hopefully good weather then the other options become viable in my opinion.

What I don't like about the Zodiac with the wood floor (panels, not slats) is I can't break it down on the water (while in the Mac). I need to do that ashore. What I do like is that it is of heavy construction with hard tubes. I like the wood floor when going ashore and hauling water, gas and other supplies to the Mac on a trip and it will carry two people and a lot of supplies easily. It is also very stable on the water and easy for someone to board.

One other option I'd consider and feel save in is a good high quality inflatable that has a high pressure floor. It could be set up or taken down while on the water. You'd have to be more careful hauling items in it and if someone is not sure footed it doesn't give the solid under-foot feeling as the wood floor. The main negative that I see with an inflatable is that you aren't going to row it in any kind of wind. If I have to go more than a few hundred yards I'm using the 3 1/2 HP Tohatsu to move it.

I've towed the Zodiac a couple thousand miles, including to the Bahamas and back, and haven't had a major problem towing but I've also worked on a towing setup that has worked very well...


http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-17.html

Towing it with just a line didn't work well in some instances,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

Interesting guys, I saw the poly castaway - could be a good solution though how would they go with 2 occupants?

Sumner, yes bigger is better with inflatables (though I would like to be able to drag it over the transom and stow below - though I know bigger and stowable are mutually exclusive!)

I have seen a few mini RIB type inflatables with a nice solid floor, I wonder if they row a bit better?

Up until now we have been using an inflatable canoe which works okay with double bladed kayak paddles:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0JGqWfn9XE

It is very light and easy to move around.

It suffers from the tiny inflatable/rigid/whatever boat syndrome in that it gets a bit scary when you are anchored a long way from shore or in dubious conditions.....

DownSouth

I guess I fall into the bigger group.

I have a 9.5' (2.89 m) Achilles with an inflatable floor and an inflatable keel. It is powered with a 6HP Mercury four stroke. The Achilles is rated for an 8HP, but 6HP is easier to handle. The folded up Achilles weighs 75lb (34KG). I always thought the Mercury weighed 40 lb (18.14KG), but I have been told by some on this sight that 55lb (24.94 KG) is more accurate.

Ray

$900 8 ft inflatable zodiac-like thing. Oars, no motor.

Bought it when I was at a club with only moorings. Used it,like 5 times before moving to a club with finger docks.

Now I don't need it. I think it's at my sister's cottage.

Oh good...another dinghy thread...



My precious contribution to a similar thread here concerning my Intex Mariner 3 inflatable is found here, with at least a semi-serious reprise on the matter of dinghies, culminating in my revelation of an inflatable that weighs only 5 pounds, folds up a foot square, and comes with a pump and oars, all for under $20 found over on the Com-Pac Yacht Owners Forums here and also here. I say "semi-serious" because I actually ordered one of those Explorer 200 kits, but through a shipping error I wound up with two.

Yes I am aware that we do tend to skirt around similar issues - but then again this is a very specific forum for just one brand of boat all engaged in one broad activity so its bound to happen......

In my defence we (Australians) tend to call them tenders (small boat to service a larger boat) rather than 'dinghys' so my site searches might not have been as comprehesive as they could have been.. My apologies for repitition if there is any

Anyway brands and products have changed since the old thread started in 2015 - the Finn Casterway mentioned above is newish for instance.

I bought an INTEX swimming pool it was okay but a bit scarred after a few years in the sun and eventually split in a storm and deposited 5,000 litres of water in the garden how are they as an occasionally used tenders?

DownSouth

In my opinion it all comes down to what you want to use it for, just to mess around in or more serious work, if its just for playing around in sure the cheapos are fine, my kids have a $15 KMart one that is a bit of fun but I wouldnt trust it as its very light and susceptible to being blown around by any wind, also because it has no firm structure its best part of impossible to make any headway if you want to row it.

We have a proper rigid hull dinghy for a tender for the boat, VERY expensive (I won it on ebay second hand for a steal of $149 retail is around $3500 new), at 2.7meters it pulls up on the foredeck upside down inflated and is ultimately seaworthy

There are plenty of intermediate options between pool toys (cheapos) and quality units depending on how much you intend to use it, look on Gumtree or Ebay you will find good quality second hand units for less than $500.

We love our little one and use it for a safety boat when the kids are out sailing their Mirror dinghies or sometimes we just go for a cruise in the dinghy for a laugh

We have 2 .... for lakes and waters without sharks and alligators lol...we use the $40 dollar cheapo we got from walmart.com big roomy light but thin....we also have a 10foot hypalon mercury with a 4hp .....its much more stable and feels much more capable however it's quite heavy 80-100 lbs and I can barely pick it up and have no idea how id ever store it on the boat while sailing ...... I'm considering a Porta bote ....less stable but 50lbs and folds up more compact

If you're in the market for an inflatable I'm considering selling mine (to replace with a Porta bote) it's a hypalon so should last longer than pvc but it's HEAVY $500

Interesting way to tow it sumner ....our attempt at an exumas trup next year is what's got me considering selling it...but seeing how you tow yours has me second guessing selling it now .....i love our inflatable but I just can't get the thing on the bow by myself...too heavy

I forgot to add this when I posted about my Achilles. I have had it for twelve years. Its use over that time has varied. Some summers I have used it for several five mile runs with the Merc. Some summer's it's motored a little, and rowed a lot.

Ray

There is always a chance something might come up that you might have to abandon an inflatable towing it but I've gone through some pretty rough stuff and that hasn't happened.

If something real bad happened to the Mac on some of the long water passages one makes going over and into the Bahamas I sure would want a 'good' inflatable and not a portabote in a situation like that, especially with more than one person. A good inflatable with a hard transom, large tubes and a blowup keel can take a person through a lot. I've never felt unsafe in ours,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

We use a Walker Bay 8' rigid and we have the inflatable "water wings" for it as well. We use oars and row it, which on a hard shell dinghy like the WB8 works quite well. The "wings" can deflate easily, and it will fit on the bow of our , though so far we have just been towing it. It tows quite nicely, though our only experience is at less than hullspeed since our boat only came with a 20hp. We've towed it through some fairly big chop now (20-25mph steady wind down a long lake last weekend) and it handles well. It creates far less drag then the previous 9' inflatable Sea Eagle dinghy we've since sold.

DO NOT, however, remove the plastic bit in the daggerboard trunk - I removed ours since I fancied the idea of getting the sail kit and zipping around protected bays teaching my kids to sail... what we've realized is that packing all the extra gear is a pain (so we have hardly used it sailing), and now the boat "leaks" around the daggerboard trunk/seat interface when all 4 of us (450+ lbs) are in the boat... it's rated at 380 lbs, but it floats without the water wings in the water, and they just add to the stability. I've since tried to seal around the trunk, which has worked to some degree. But while pounding back through the chop last weekend, water was obviously shooting up through the open trunk occasionally, because we had about 1" of water on the floor once we got back to our mooring 6 hours later.

Our secondary "dinghy" is a convertible kayak/SUP by Ocean Kayak (Nalu), which we tow on a second boyant rope from the opposite cleat. This one doesn't tow quite as nice, but it is a lot of fun paddling around at anchor