My 2004 Catalina 310 needs a new dingy. The current West Marine RIB is at the end of its uselife. What is a fine replacement for this FL sailboat?
Need dingy for Cat 310
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I'm trying the Walker Bay 8' hard dinghy. It only weighs 73 pounds, rows nicely, and can be sailed. A flotation collar is also available. I had a nice 8' Zodiak inflatable for several years, but the Florida sun dried out the glue and the floor separated from the hull. I've repaired it, but I don't consider it seaworthy anymore. Hopefully the Walker Bay will last a lot longer and give a drier ride than the Zodiak did.
It All Depends on What You Plan to do with It
It's almost like my other mantra of "It All Depends on How It's Wired!" Really.
The WM catalog has a very good writeup in the Advisor section on dinghies, and explains, patiently, that the selection of a dinghy, at ANY time in a skipper's & crew's lifetime, is based on how they plan to use the dinghy.
If you anchor out a lot, but ONLY are 300 yards off the beach, then you most likely don't need (not want, I say, but need
) a 15HP 12 foot RIB. A smaller inflatable for the suggested Walker Bay - type solid dinghy of ANY kind, would suffice.
If, however, you need to use the dinghy for longer jaunts and/or have areas where you can, and like to, go fast, then you'll need a different platform or else you'll be disappointed in your purchase.'
Two examples: Same skipper, different boats, same anchorage:
Example 1: Skipper, Me! Boats: Catalina 25 with a 8'-4" West Marine older 1989 with what I called my "egg beater" Johnson 1.2 HP only forward gear 2 stroke engine. Anchorage: California Delta, Three River Reach, which is about a mile from the closest ice and beer store.
It took an hour to motor there in the dinghy with my then 12 year old daughter. We had fun, were in no hurry and the dinghy worked just fine for us because we always kept a small 1 or 1 1/2 gallon jug of premix fuel in the dinghy. That was essentially the furthest we ever had to "run" the dinghy to get somewhere, all the rest were actually row-able boat to shore excursions.
Example 2: same skipper. Boats: Catalina 34 with a Zodiac Cadet Fast Roller Hi pressure Air Floor 10'-2" with a 9.9 HP Evinrude pre-owned 2 stroke. Same anchorage, get to the same place in 10 minutes! Ended up going further up the Delta to Lost Slough which is about 2 to 3 miles to the stores. Because of speed limits in much of the area, couldn't go fast except for less than a half mile of the whole trip anyway to do laundry, buy supplies and tour around. But we bought the biggest, fastest "rig" we could because we knew we would be in places that would allow us to get out and stretch the legs of the bigger dinghy.
Sometimes I wish I'd kept the older 1.2 HP engine, 'cuz I could manhandle it with one hand from the boat to the dinghy. With the 9.9 HP I use our Garhauer dinghy motor lift, which is a great piece of equipment. Shoulda had both engines, to give me a choice, but the dinghy is great, been going on 10 years and it's in great shape, but no FL sun and we keep it delfated and either down below or home when not in use.
I notice you had an RIB, so if you liked or disliked it, what were your reasons? Good luck on your choice of replacement.
It's almost like my other mantra of "It All Depends on How It's Wired!" Really.
The WM catalog has a very good writeup in the Advisor section on dinghies, and explains, patiently, that the selection of a dinghy, at ANY time in a skipper's & crew's lifetime, is based on how they plan to use the dinghy.
If you anchor out a lot, but ONLY are 300 yards off the beach, then you most likely don't need (not want, I say, but need
) a 15HP 12 foot RIB. A smaller inflatable for the suggested Walker Bay - type solid dinghy of ANY kind, would suffice.If, however, you need to use the dinghy for longer jaunts and/or have areas where you can, and like to, go fast, then you'll need a different platform or else you'll be disappointed in your purchase.'
Two examples: Same skipper, different boats, same anchorage:
Example 1: Skipper, Me! Boats: Catalina 25 with a 8'-4" West Marine older 1989 with what I called my "egg beater" Johnson 1.2 HP only forward gear 2 stroke engine. Anchorage: California Delta, Three River Reach, which is about a mile from the closest ice and beer store.
It took an hour to motor there in the dinghy with my then 12 year old daughter. We had fun, were in no hurry and the dinghy worked just fine for us because we always kept a small 1 or 1 1/2 gallon jug of premix fuel in the dinghy. That was essentially the furthest we ever had to "run" the dinghy to get somewhere, all the rest were actually row-able boat to shore excursions.
Example 2: same skipper. Boats: Catalina 34 with a Zodiac Cadet Fast Roller Hi pressure Air Floor 10'-2" with a 9.9 HP Evinrude pre-owned 2 stroke. Same anchorage, get to the same place in 10 minutes! Ended up going further up the Delta to Lost Slough which is about 2 to 3 miles to the stores. Because of speed limits in much of the area, couldn't go fast except for less than a half mile of the whole trip anyway to do laundry, buy supplies and tour around. But we bought the biggest, fastest "rig" we could because we knew we would be in places that would allow us to get out and stretch the legs of the bigger dinghy.
Sometimes I wish I'd kept the older 1.2 HP engine, 'cuz I could manhandle it with one hand from the boat to the dinghy. With the 9.9 HP I use our Garhauer dinghy motor lift, which is a great piece of equipment. Shoulda had both engines, to give me a choice, but the dinghy is great, been going on 10 years and it's in great shape, but no FL sun and we keep it delfated and either down below or home when not in use.
I notice you had an RIB, so if you liked or disliked it, what were your reasons? Good luck on your choice of replacement.
walker bay
I have the walker bay 8 and put her on the foredeck (using the spin halyard to hoist) with the bow aft and to stbd inside the shrouds. This leaves enough room room to walk by the dink stern up fwd and still be able to open the anchor locker and work the ground tackle. I would love to have davits, but this works fine and is not to hard to live with.
I have the walker bay 8 and put her on the foredeck (using the spin halyard to hoist) with the bow aft and to stbd inside the shrouds. This leaves enough room room to walk by the dink stern up fwd and still be able to open the anchor locker and work the ground tackle. I would love to have davits, but this works fine and is not to hard to live with.
I now have a Sea Eagle YT.
http://www.seaeagle.com/YachtTenders.aspx
Since it will spend time on the water of Tampa Bay, it needs bottom paint. The well built hull is PVC material. West Marine Has Petit paint at a higher cost. I went with the hotlink below. On the Cat 310 is a 5hp four stroke.
http://www.bottompaintstore.com/Inflatable-Antifouling-QT-1775.htm?productId=24
http://www.seaeagle.com/YachtTenders.aspx
Since it will spend time on the water of Tampa Bay, it needs bottom paint. The well built hull is PVC material. West Marine Has Petit paint at a higher cost. I went with the hotlink below. On the Cat 310 is a 5hp four stroke.
http://www.bottompaintstore.com/Inflatable-Antifouling-QT-1775.htm?productId=24
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