Dinghy Dilemma

Milligan,Whangaroa.

“She’s a hard road finding the perfect Woman, Son.” So the Southern Man in the Speights beer commercial said. Well the same can be said for a Dinghy/Tender. They come in all shapes, sizes and configurations; inflatables (either rigid or soft bottomed) fibreglass, moulded plastic, wood, aluminium or folding. Your choice of dinghy will be governed by your wants, needs and abilities, and of course the size your Mother vessel. But even then it is not a simple task to choose, as different people have differing ideas as to what constitutes a good dinghy. An example of this is my partner Paul and I. Paul really enjoys rowing, I enjoy being rowed around, Paul enjoys balancing on unstable objects, Me ……I DON’T. So our dilemma has been to find a stable, load capable, row-able expedition dinghy for when we are cruising on our 32ft yacht.

Over the years we have owned a number of dinghies. The first (in my experience) was a fibreglass 2.8mtr Seabird sailing dinghy, a good rower and load carrier, but way too big for the deck of our 32ft yacht. A few smaller fibreglass dinghies followed, but free board was not so great. We ventured into aluminium, with a 7ft dinghy. This sat well on our cabin top, under the boom, but was very skittish and light. Then after much trial and error we thought we had found the one… Milligan came into our lives

Paul purchased it off Trade Me, and we ventured down to Auckland to collect it. Milligan is a 7ft fibreglass clinker style dinghy, very pretty to behold. We named her Milligan because the previous owner had engraved their name “Milligan” all over the place. She was heavier than the aluminium one, but still lovely to row and fitted on the deck perfectly. But her pretty looks belied an inner demon, exposed during our first six month cruise. Milligan was not a great load carrier; her lovely sheer and diminutive size meant low freeboard and minimal leg room. Long expeditions with the outboard, led to cramped legs and wet groceries/washing etc. Milligan was also very unstable, as I found to my detriment when boarding the dinghy one day after work. Luckily the laptop and I did not fall in, but a bruised ego and a swollen knee were the outcome. So after a summer cruising with Milligan we decided to look around for another dinghy. After much bleating from me, Paul gave in and bought a 2.6 mtr Java inflatable. Yeeee Haaaa, it was great fun, even Paul got his kicks out of zooming around with the outboard. Yes, it was stable, could carry big loads, didn’t bang on the hull in the middle of the night, but try rowing that puppy in a stiff breeze. We couldn’t win.

Fatima,Ranfurley Bay, Whangaroa.

Back to Trade Me we went, and a few days before Christmas 2010, Paul found a John Wellsford designed “Tender Behind” for sale. Paul has always admired the design, and we have had the plans for this dinghy for about 6 years, but Paul has never had the time to build one. So we jumped at the chance, and on Boxing Day it was another trip down to Auckland to collect her. “Tender Behinds” at 7ft 4ins are tubby little pram dinghies in the “Nutshell” style, with high freeboard. They can be configured as a sailing dinghy if wanted, but ours does not have the centreboard case installed. After much discussion we decided to call her “Fatima”. The name brings to mind rubenesque belly dancers, cavorting across an ocean of glittering veils.

So Fatima was installed on the deck of our yacht Kabuki. She fits perfectly between the mast and the dodger, and over the gas box. We can lift her on and off the deck with ease, using our main halyard and attached bridle. Fatima came with old style bronze rowlocks, which at first we were going to replace, but we have become attached to them after 6 months use. Being a pram dinghy with a bluff bow, rowing into a chop is not great. But she is still enjoyable to row and scoot around on with the outboard. Our outboard is a 2hp 4 stroke Honda, which we find is plenty big enough for our requirements. Fatima’s load carrying capacity is pretty impressive, her high freeboard makes for a drier ride, and the flatter wider bottom means she is a very stable little craft.

The only downside is she is heavier than “Milligan”, being made of plywood and glassed. We could install dinghy wheels on to the transom, but we are a bit traditional and find they are ….What’s a nice way of putting it?........UGLY. Because of this we have ended up in some sticky situations. Like the time we got caught at Coromandel Township, up the very tidal creek on an outgoing tide with 40 litres of water, a bag of wet washing, groceries and the outboard, trying to get back to the yacht and move to a better anchorage before a gale came through. Oh the joys of cruising.

Just to let you know, we have not done away with “Milligan”. She has gone into early retirement in our backyard, being such a pretty dinghy it is hard to part with her. We do have one more dinghy; Skody is an 8ft 4inch fibreglass clinker style dinghy, she is lovely to row, but has low freeboard. She lives on the jetty down at the Town basin, waiting for us to escort her out to Kabuki. She is shabby and moth eaten, with a smattering of graffiti from the local youths. Life is very hard down at the dinghy dock. Skody has been sunk, set free, filled with mud, battered and taken for a joy ride. The “Seabird” sailing dinghy that I mentioned at the beginning of this article?; Well she is called “Fatty Boom Bah”, she has found a home with our Son and His wife, we appear to have passed on the sailing bug to them, poor deluded individuals.