Dealing with your dinghy

[Southcoasting]

So I've been lurking and reading as much as I can about sailing for the past 3 months and bought my first boat but have been thinking lately, what do I want to do about my dinghy situation since the boat will be in a mooring?

So was wondering, what do people do in general? Do they store it in their house and whenever they need to get to the boat, they need to transport it to the dock? Is there storage places at marinas for dinghys?

If people need to transport their dinghys each time to get to their boat, I'm assuming they are light enough to put on top of their cars etc?

 

[Rich Stidger]

Most marinas have dinghy storage available. Sometimes launch service is an option. The problem that I have had with dinghy storage is where to store the outboard. I never liked to just leave it on the dinghy for security reasons and because with the outboard the dinghy is much heavier to carry to the water.

 

[BobM]

We have space available at our yacht club. It is only $75/season. Don't discount the experience of being at a club. Ours is very reasonable (~$700/season including launch service and a card worth $150 in the lounge) and far more populated with plumbers, electricians, police and fire than lawyers and CEOs.

 

[seadaddler]

Depends

It really depends on the Marina and yes some have a rack and some I have seen mostly old hard bottom left on shore and a short row to boat,small motor could carry in car and depends what and how you want to do it and whats available at the Marina.
Nick

 

[Bill Roosa]

I use the marina dingy rack and them fancy oar things. I can row my hard bottom around to the boat in very short order and they are both light and easy to store with the boat.

 

[Tommy T]

Our club has a dock for storing dingys. When our boat was on a mooring we rowed out to it. With rowing there wasn't any worry about a motor being stolen or having to carry it back and forth. Also (at least in Tennessee) if you don't have a motor on it, it doesn't need to be registered. Even if you put a trolling motor on it, Tennessee requires it to be registered and display numbers on the dingy.

 

[Rich Stidger]

At one of my previous moorings, I had a dinghy rack and use of a wooden shed to store the outboard. My mooring was only 200 feet from the dock in a sheltered river. Rowing was pretty easy but with the dinghy piled with two adults, 2 teens, and all their stuff, there was no room to operate the oars. I put on the outboard.

My next mooring was about 1/4 mile from the dock in a relatively exposed cove. I took the launch and kept my dinghy on-board on the foredeck and outboard in a locker.

My present mooring is about 1/2 mile from the dock in a cove that is exposed to the prevailing SW winds. We often have 6" chop in the cove. I now keep the dinghy on davits and the outboard mounted on the dinghy. I take the launch with all our stuff.

Different options, different situations. All workable, some more than others.

 

[JEB]

My boat is on a mooring with no dinghy storage available except at a public dock. I have a small trailer that I tow with my Honda Civic to take the dinghy home most of the time. It takes about 5 min. to launch and retrieve the dinghy. I leave it at the public dock sometimes when I am using the boat within the next day or two.

 

[mcrow33]

I leave it chained to the dock at the club. Most folks chain their motor and gas tank to the dinghy. Most of the marinas here have special dinghy dock where you leave your dinghy.

 

[CHARLIE STAGE]

My boat is on a mooring about 200ft. from shore I have for the last 11yrs. used 55lb thrust trolling motor to get me back and forth on 11ft inflatable hard bottom. It works great even with a load of 2 or 3 people and gear. I have also used it for a considerable amount of exploring when at anchor. When the wind is up and the waves rough it will get buy but not with a load. When that occurs it is best to have only 2 people in the boat and make 2 or more trips. The weight of the motor is barely an arm load. The battery is heavy i.e.50lbs., but easily stored and carried. The trolling motor has never failed to start or run, does not pollute, easily transported and is no where near as expensive as other brand name electric motors. I advise you to shop around and I would stay in the 40 to 50lb. thrust range. I am probably gling to replace it this comeing year as it is now wearing down. Not a bad investment at @$300.

 

[Anchorsaweigh]

There's a lot to be said for belonging to a club with launch service. My dinghy hangs on the davits. Pre or post season when the launch is not running it is on the dinghy rack. I don't usually use the outboard within the vicinity of the club.

Cheers,

Bob

 

[CHARLIE STAGE]

Sorry I could not finish my last I had to run. As for the dinghy we have a pretty honest community I just pull mine up on shore tie it to a rock if necessary and leave it. Never had one stolen in 22yrs.. It would be great if we could get all the states together on registration and perhaps not require an electric powered dinghy to be registered.

 

[islandjim]

Dinghy Storage

I keep my boat on a mooring and use my dinghy to travel to and from my vessel. Once I arrive along side of our vessel, we unload everything we have and I move the dinghy to attach to the mooring ball. This means no towing the dinghy and it is easily picked up after grabbing the mooring line. The boat is then walked to the stern where it is loaded with anything going to shore plus the passengers. I also use a electric trolling motor to move the dinghy along.

When the dinghy is not being used, I leave her on the hard, without chains or ropes securing her in place. I learned a long time ago to not have a great dinghy as they are the first to be stolen. My 8' tender is mid seventies era and is pretty ratty looking, but is safe and sturdy. It gets us where we need to go and when towing behind gets us to and from shore on those adventures. Our boat yard does not charge for the dinghy storage. All I have to do is bring my oars, electric motor and battery. Making sure you have oars is important! The battery on the boat died once and I put in the dinghies battery to keep the bilge pump on alert and had to use the boats oar to paddle back to shore. I now keep a pair of oars on board.

 

[spuki]

We let a combination of convenience, expense, security, and available resources dictate what we do. That is why we have a small inflatable and a larger folding dinghy. In the past we have had hard dinghies, too. If you have a convenient place to store the dinghy for a nominal fee near the launching point, that is ideal. At one time we trailered a dinghy from home. What we experienced were times when we could not access our boat because of lack of parking for the trailer at the launch point. In addition, you might have to wait your turn launching and retrieving. We seem to have settled on having dinghies that are relatively easy to transport with the car and are capable being stored on board our boat while underway. Towing dinghies behind the boat is okay for short hops, but we prefer to get rid of the drag. Quick setup and take down are important, too. We never found the hard dinghies to be worth their touted advantages when compared to the stability of an inflatable or folding boat. Maybe we didn't have the right design, but it seemed like we could not carry as much in them. If you are using an outboard, you usually end up taking it with you anyway. This is why we have a small 2-cycle with a built in tank. Convenient portability is the key. We have an electric motor, but it requires a not so convenient battery. I would rather row my port-a-bote, than lug the battery. The new electric motors sound great until you see the price tag. Maybe that will change someday.

 

[Nelsonhow]

On the Beach Rack

Our town on the LI Sound offers free mooring space in town waters for residents (you supply the anchor and ball) with dingy rack storage at the beach for $90 per season. I have a Waker Bay hard dingy and use a 13lb 1.5 HP air cooled Cruise-n-Carry outboard to put out to the mooring. (I always bring the emergency propulsion devices in case). It's worked for 10+ years but to tell the truth the launch service is much more civilized albeit significantly more expensive).

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I have a neat way to lock my dinghy to a dock or my boat while it is in the water. I have a fiberglass hard bottom dinghy with inflatable tubes. There is a bow eye bolted through the fiberglass stem and I lock one end of a galvanized chain with a padlock to this bow eye. The length of the chain is long enough to go around the tube at the bow and then I can take a second padlock and attach it to the eye on the inside of the boat. When I want to lock it, I remove the lock on the inside, wrap the chain around a piling, etc. and then use the lock again to secure the loop. With a slotted aluminum toe rail, I can slip the end link through a slot and attach the padlock so that it is secure. The chain also doubles as a place to attach my D Cell battery operated red/green running light when motoring after dark. There is a bracket on the flashlight like device that accepts a pin that runs through the bracket on the light and another bracket that you are supposed to glue to the tube. Instead of gluing the rubber bracket to the tube, I use the cross pin to pass through the bracket and a link on the chain on top of the tube and it works really well. So, this doesn't really answer the original question, but might be helpful for securing the dinghy to where ever the boat is kept. The dinghy motor is locked on to the dinghy with a simple padlock through the clamp handle that tightens the motor to the transom.

 

[SailingHarry]

Reading through the responses, I see a common thread. They all say "use the marina" or "use the club" or "my community." Many add a comment about a launch. Most of the responses come from New England.

Here on the Chesapeake, moorings tend not to be part of a club or marina, or even in sight of same. If you were able to manage to get a mooring close to a marina, I don't know how agreeable they would be to letting you keep a dingy at their facility, use their parking, and go to a private mooring -- all at a very nominal annual fee. And, "launches" are unheard of.

When I got my boat, I was trying to minimize storage costs, and looked around for mooring type options. Not a pretty sight indeed! In much of the Chesapeake, public waterfront access is extremely limited (Anne Arundel County has something like 3 places in the county where you can launch a dingy, although the City of Annapolis has some street ends reserved for City residents), and dingy access and storage are nearly insurmountable impediments to using a private mooring.

 

[mcrow33]

I'm not sure about other places, but around here the only way to have a mooring is to either be associated with a club or marina. Unless you have your own waterfront access or lease access from a private owner. I guess I'm confused in how or why you would want a mooring on a water front that gives you no access? How do you get to your boat? You still need to park somewhere? There was one bay here that had a state run fishing access, and a few people dropped mooring there. They used to chain there dinghies to the trees at the fishing access. After awhile the state sent notices to everybody tell them to remove their dinghy.

Mike

 

[Alan]

I keep my dinghy at home on a dolly that I use to load onto the bed of my pickup. I drive 400 yards to the town beach that has a launch ramp. The boat is about 100 yds off the beach. When I return to the mooring where the dinghy was left I motor back to the ramp, load the dink on the truck and drive back home. There I offload the dink back on her dolly and cover it with a tarp. From mooring to home and covered takes 10-15 minutes.

 

[We2Sail12113]

It looks like most of the options have been covered. Some friends have an inflatable dinghy that takes about 20 minutes to pump up by hand, and hey keep it in the trunk of their car.

In Massachusetts, if the dinghy was designed to be powered by an OB, then it must be registered as a powered dinghy. The ones designed to be row or sail only (no engine mount), then do not need be registered as a powered craft. For short hauls in fair weather, you can get a very small OB (1 - 1 1./2 hp), and weighs less than 25 pounds.

I used to keep my boat on a mooring, and it had launch service so I kept the dinghy tethered to the boat, and the 85 pound engine on a OB pad on the stern rail. I also had a Forespar Engine lift which was capable of transferring the engine to.from the dinghy.

Many marina's in Massachusetts have mostly moorings, so they have a dinghy dock and yes, people do leave their engines on the dinghys at the dock., They are also patrolled and in some cases gated.

My current Marina only has dockage, but the slips are big enough so I can keep the dinghy in water next to my sailboat. They do have a very small dinghy dock but no one keeps the engine on them for more than a trip to the store. The owner permits people on their own moorings to use his dinghy dock. I think he charges them $400/ season.

At another marina (same harbor), they only have moorings and no dinghy dock, but a dinghy rack. Most of the dinghys (maybe 20 of them) all look like they seen better days a long time ago. Probably used just to get out to their mooring.

Bob