As Europe and the USA yachties usually moor in a marina and don't anchor. Dinghies are less important, this changes as soon as anchoring becomes the rule, cruisers anchor 99% of the time, dinghies are important.
The dingy is what the car is for the landlubber, as they also have to go ashore to do the shopping, thus wants to get groceries and them selves dry back on board, even in rough weather.
Dinghies bought in Europe or USA are in general useless or a waste of money, as are the storage possibilities.
Where the garage and the car have an alarm, dinghies have none, thus easy to steal.
If you don't raise your dingy every night, the bottom is fouled with barnacles within a couple of weeks or are stolen and untraceable, if not the sun would have done its job with the UV rays destroying it.
Cruisers with a tight budget think twice buy once.
The choice is inflatable or not or a little bit of both, inflatable is the best choice for a sailing yacht, a hard sailing dingy looks nice but is hard and heavy to get onboard and difficult to go ashore with 4 persons and return including all the groceries.
Dinghies comes in soft bottom with floor boards or the new inflatable high pressure bottom, many times better, or as RIB Rigged Inflatable Bottom very strong good to sail with and very stable and less risk of spoiling it on a sharp beach, but ensure yourself that the bottom is flat and not a deep V as this is cause to many twisted ankles jumping in the boat when leaving in rough seas.
The next important step is material choice, actually there is only one choice that is HYPALON forget all other PVC makes, those are toys for the kids and only last a year in the hot tropic sun, not for the serious cruiser.
Hypalon is used by AVON, AB, CAribe and some other makes, yes they are more expensive but ours last already 10 years and is intensively used.
Another point of interest is the beam between the tubes and the tube size, the bigger the more you can carry and dryer you arrive.
The size of the dingy depends on your boat, some think to put a 10' dingy upside down on the forward hatch this is not handy but a solution and needs to be lashed down properly as the sea is unforgiving, Davits are thus preferable.
Rowing a dingy is a hard job you better forget, the outboard will do a better job, however only 4 strokes are available in Europe, that’s bad, but you need something, or try to buy a second hand 2 stroke and in paradise a new 2 stroke.
I hear the environmentalist screaming pollution, but the 2 stroke uses environmentally good oil weight less and have better power/weight ratio and run as clean as the 4 stroke, where do they leave their 4 stroke waste sump oil as there are no dumping sites every where.
4 strokes gas outboards have much more failures compared with the 2 stroke outboard, where the chandlers in paradise have trouble to get 4 stroke parts the 2 strokes are widely available and even a non technical sailor can repair a 2 stroke .
A 10Hp outboard and a light 10' dingy planes already with 2 persons with groceries, this light weight combination is easy to handle.
The reason we planed this 10' dingy with a 10Hp outboard was because we fitted big fins horizontally on the tail, these fins are available with the Budget or West marine chandleries.
A 25 Hp 2 stroke outboard weights half and is much smaller than its equivalent 25 Hp 4 stroke.
These dinghies and outboards cost about half in paradise of what they cost in Europe, thus makes the choice easier.
Lifting dinghies.As we don't like cumbersome work to launce the dingy a Arch with built in David on the boats poop can solve this problem and a the same time create the possibility to fit radar, antenna's, and even solar panels to the arch all out of mans harm.
Hereby some tips from our experience of the past about 200.000 miles sailing
- Lift the dingy every night to prevent theft and fouling. If you don't have davits use the topping lift and lift the dingy to the top of your railing and secure it properly, a squall at night plays otherwise havoc.
- When you leave the dingy on a jetty and even when lifted for the night lock it or loose it.
- Have the following with you in the dingy when you venture the bays. A torch, to walk on the sharp stones sandals. Sometimes it is law to carry a life vest for each. Don’t forget water to drink and spare gas. A hand held at least water resistant VHF.
- A small Danfort with 2 meter chain and 20 meter rope to prevent drifting in the ocean with engine failure or to prevent damage the dingy laying alongside the jetty where there is a surge, than only make fast the bow and deploy the anchor which you can throw from the poop. Have dingy wheels fitted to pull the dingy up the beach and secure it to a palm tree.
- When ever alongside a jetty never tilt your outboard as the prop can damage or cut other dinghies when there is a surge.
- Towing your dingy, forget it... your asking for problems if you insist in towing, remove the outboard and take a strong 3 to 4 times as long as your dingy floating tow line, it otherwise ends up in your prop when you reverse the sailboat. Fit this tow line on the bow eye on a RIB or on the guide eyes and make fast on the transom as this is designed to take load.
- Have a spare prop unless you know how to fix the prop when the rubber insert start slipping.
- When you have engine failure don't pull with you dingy but rather push this goes much better, or lash the dingy alongside, if you have space on your transom fit the outboard there you do not require a lot of power to move the boat, compared with the past, boats in general are overpowered, we once moved our 50' Cat with a 5 Hp, call for assistance when you enter the harbor or anchorage all cruisers help each other.
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