We have had several tenders A small boat, to get to and from a larger vessel especially when at anchor. since we started boating. Of these, two stand out. Both of them were 6ft Barrow boats. One named Bo after Pip's Grandmother, who largely funded it, and the other Bodhi.
Bo under Sail
Bo we built ourselves from a kit, and very splendid she was. She was sailed with a balanced lug A lug sail where part of the sail is in front of the mast. rig, all the rig fitting in the boat when not in use. Bo unfortunately went the way of King John's treasure and was lost in the Wash. She would not have sunk, so someone in that area has a lovely little dinghy - if you read this, please look after her, she was well loved.
Bodhi we bought second hand as a replacement for Bo. She was not as sturdily built as Bo, but has nevertheless served us well. Bodhi has a spritsail boom rig, based on a layout in "100 small boat rigs" by Philip C. Bolger. Required reading for anyone interested in sailing rigs.
We modified both of these boats to act as our life-raft as well as our tender, on the basis that people in a life-raft should be able to do something positive about their survival (in this instance, sail towards land or shipping lanes). These modifications have mainly centred around added buoyancy and shelter, as well as being over strength for their normal purpose.
In addition to these we have an ageing Avon Redcrest inflatable dinghy named Solo.
Pros and cons of inflatables and hard dinghies.Inflatable dinghies
Solo looking sorry for himself.
They are in principle wonderfully useful, however there are drawbacks. Solo was with Duet when we bought her, and being rather naïve in all things nautical, we assumed he was appropriate as a tender. The main trouble is that you either carry your inflatable deflated, rolled up and packed away somewhere, or inflated and towed behind. Of these the latter is by far the most convenient for actually using the dinghy, a thing we were especially grateful for when we ran aground in a firing range. Leaping into the dinghy and rowing us off was extremely useful. However an inflatable is not actually designed to go through the water quickly and easily. There is massive drag from the large area of hull in contact with the water. As a result, he reduced Duet's speed by between 1 and 2 knots, which is rather a high percentage of her top speed of about 7 knots. Stowing the dinghy deflated requires more space than Duet really had available, and makes rapid deployment a near impossibility.
The joy of a sailing tender.
Hard dinghies
They are even more awkward to store aboard, but when towed they have far less drag than an inflatable. They have the added advantage that they can have a sailing rig. Against that they are far heavier to lift and carry. On Duet we had to tow our hard dinghy, because there was no way we could get her aboard. On Rusty we have her aboard as there is plenty of space, however we do not as yet have an easy launching and recovery system.
Conclusions
All in all, we are in favour of hard dinghies, especially for the type of sailing that we do, where we do not make very long passages, where being able to stow a dinghy right out of the way is an advantage. The added bonus of a sailing rig enables one to explore rivers and creeks, without disturbing the local wildlife and inhabitants with an outboard. With an inflatable, we would have to carry a life-raft as well, whereas with a hard dinghy, we can design it to do both jobs.
