A dinghy for the Gaffer...

[bfelton]

Try and find a used Montgomery 6'8".  It a small lapstrake pram.

Bert

[Joseph]

Thank you bfelton for reopening this old post of mine. I had forgotten about it and failed to update it. The Montgomery 6-8 is a beautiful and very able pram (Lin and Larry Pardey used one as tender to their Taleisin). However, being fiberglass and lapstrake I figured it would be too heavy for my intended use.

Since my posting on the Phebling a year and half ago I have pursued this search further, restricting it to a boat I could lift from the ground on my own but stable enough to safely kedge an anchor in 15-20 knot winds. I have found two possible solutions to this conundrum: first I bought a Sevylor Rio KCC305. It does not have the classic look that the SunCat deserves in its tender, but it is extremely rugged, functional, easily paddled (as a kayak) and its price is right. However, it needs to be inflated and deflated at onset and end of each trip and its thick fabric needs to be thoroughly dried before storage. As an alternative I decided to get a BIC Sportyak I (there is also a larger and heavier Sportyak II). This is an old French design of the 70s made in plastic. This little bathtub-toy-looking boat behaves as a small pre-inflated inflatable and has several advantages over the Sevylor: it can be rowed as a regular pram, there is no need to inflate, deflate & dry it, and it can be transported either on the roof of the Jeep or upside down and sideways inside the SunCat cockpit. I imagine it could be overturned by 2-3 ft. sharp waves but otherwise, it feels amazingly stable.

J.

[Bob23]

J.
   We had a Sportyak for a while...I gave it to my brother who uses it to row out to his O'day Mariner. It is indeed, being a catamaran hull, very stable. Also very slow and would probably produce noticable drag while being towed. 
   I use a Walker Bay 8 for my CP23 and I love it. Oh, it was also free, which is why it appealed to me so much! Lapstrake, industructable plastice and is pretty stable. Plus it looks good. Downside is they are not cheap if you buy one.
bob23

[Joseph]

Hi Bob,

I had a WB 8 as a tender to my Alberg 22 for many years. Nice design and made of the same material as most fenders. However, I found it too big for the SunCat and also on the heavy side (real difficult lifting it atop the car by myself). Drag-wise I haven't yet tested it extensively but the initial feeling is that it causes less drag than the WB8. Tell you next summer...

J.

[Dave-in-RI]

In the 11 years since this post, is there by chance a consensus on what's a suitable dinghy (ideally for more than 2 people) for carrying on and/or towing behind a Sun Cat?

[Joseph]

I am now a Captain w/o ship... but after 30 years of sailing (12 with a SunCat and a Bic Sportyak II as its dinghy), I still vouch for the venerable French Sportyak II (213), particularly if you also get its single-wheel system (carrying it on land by myself was the only thing I found a bit difficult). The many virtues of this design have already been described, so I will only add that it is also recyclable...

Have fun,

J.   

[Dave-in-RI]

Thank you!

[Dave-in-RI]

Those who use a dinghy... where is the best place to board & disembark? I had a Picnic Cat and found the boarding ladder only served to get me stuck facing the gallows (and Bimini if up), essentially a dead end. With a dinghy, do you just climb over the side rails midship, or do you use the ladder and pull yourself up and in using the gallows (which seems less than ideal for the gelcoat/ mounts)? These are the questions of an idle New England sailor dreaming of warmer waters in spring.

[Tim Gardner]

Along side is best. I use my 12' 1965 Starcraft aluminum rowboat as a tender when needed.

[Joseph]

Those who use a dinghy... where is the best place to board & disembark? With a dinghy, do you just climb over the side rails midship, or do you use the ladder and pull yourself up and in using the gallows (which seems less than ideal for the gelcoat/ mounts)?

Boarding and unboarding the dinghy, astern via the ladder or midship, was never a problem... until I reached my 70s. The difficulty did not reside on the dinghy itself but on the fact that the leg muscles get weaker and the equilibrium reflexes get slower with age. When this happened I was still able to get a few more years of enjoyment from Sassy and the Sportyak by making a few adjustments. First, I installed a taller seat in the dinghy; although this elevated the center of gravity, it ensured that my knees did not have to bend as much and I could sit faster once standing midship the dinghy. Second, I fasten a line to the stern of the tender, which I could grab from my seat to facilitate a more gradual movement when sitting down and getting upright. Third, I needed to fasten the dinghy tight to the boat in such a way that it would not glide sideways and slip away from her while boarding or un-boarding the dinghy. The best way I found to achieve this was to fasten a line midbeam the dinghy (I used for this the hole for the oarlock) and cleat it as tight as possible to the cleat on the starboard site of the stern of the boat. Then I would bring the pender at the bow of the dinghy around the cleat midship the boat (starboard side) and also cleat it tight at the stern cleat on top the other line. With the dinghy thus affixed, I would slowly step midship the dinghy and once seated, I would release both lines from the boat stern cleat and with the dinghy already underway I would remove the line at the stern of the dinghy from the oarlock hole and replace the oarlock and started rowing. At re-boarding time I would reverse the entire manœuvre. Maybe this did not make for the most elegant of seamanship choreographies, but esthetics was the least of my worries. As the gelcoat goes, the Sportyak being all Polyethylene, if any damage ensued, it was never noticed.

J.