dinghy / liferaft

[Owly055]

     I'm not at all thrilled with the emergency life rafts that are available.    They have been frequently known to not work, they're expensive, require periodic inspection and repack, and deteriorate fairly quickly in tropical climates.    In a perfect world, we would not need to be concerned about our boats being wrecked by storms, reefs, floating containers, collision, etc, and the vast majority of boaters never take to the raft thankfully.   When I imagine bobbing about helplessly in the Indian Ocean,  Atlantic, Pacific, etc, in one of those pathetic little rafts, praying that someone will rescue me, it doesn't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling.   Your ultimate life raft is the boat itself...... or should be rather.   It is unfortunately virtually impossible to make modern yachts with liners unsinkable, or to divide them into water tight compartments.   Knock a hole in one, and it's going down........ end of story.   I feel it's not only possible, but just plain good sense to section an unlined boat to make it possible to isolate a problem area and, and there are a number of areas that would lend themselves well to this............ but that's another story.
     Suppose one has to take to the lifeboat / liferaft.   I can't speak for you, but personally I want a lifeboat capable of being sailed, even if slowly.   A lifeboat I'm familiar with, and have used before it involves a crisis.   There are a couple of options of dinghies that could serve as a liferaft as well as a dinghy.   It would need to be unsinkable, and that can be accomplished by the design of the boat, or by addition of flotation tubes.   The reality is that most of us will never sail beyond the range of the US Coast Guard, but there are those of us such as myself, who are drawn to the remote empty reaches of the oceans, and frankly I don't believe in being dependent on outside help, though I would hope that such help arrived when I needed it.   People are lost at sea without a trace virtually every year.  It's a big ocean.   
     There is the issue of storage of a dinghy / lifeboat on a small yacht.  Rigid dinghies are definitely superior, but always in the way, even davits aren't a great solution.   I lean toward rigid.   Good "lifedingies" are expensive, but a life raft is expensive and not a good option as far as I'm concerned, and you pretty much have to have a dinghy anyway.    The Portland Pudgie looks like a nice option, but quickly adds up, pushing $3k without the exposure canopy or sail kit, and twice that figure complete.   The walker Bay plastic dinghy with the inflation tube kit is about half that price, and the sail kit is also more economical, but there isn't an exposure canopy for it as far as I know.   There are dinghies that can be broken in two and nested...... a reasonable way of keeping size down.   I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has examined these options.  I'm curious as to what conclusions others have arrived at.

                                                                                                H.W.

[Frank]

Yep....nothing is as needed as a good dingy and requires more compromise than a dingy.
I think, like your actual boat, ya have to be totally honest with yourself how you will use one.
Offshore on a smaller boat a rollup is almost the only choice. No small dingy will make much headway to weather in the ocean so some sort of downwind sail could be figured out ahead of time....maybe using a whisker pole?
Inflatables are SO stable, roll up small but can be a PITA as well.
Hard bottoms are tippy, harder to store but row better and don't need patching...as often  :D
Dingy's truly are a big dilemma for any cruiser.
So much rests on how and where they will be used...
I doubt there is anywhere near "the perfect dingy" out there and if someone came up with one at a decent price...I'm sure they could sell the rights and retire!!

[Owly055]

Yep....nothing is as needed as a good dingy and requires more compromise than a dingy.
I think, like your actual boat, ya have to be totally honest with yourself how you will use one.
Offshore on a smaller boat a rollup is almost the only choice. No small dingy will make much headway to weather in the ocean so some sort of downwind sail could be figured out ahead of time....maybe using a whisker pole?
Inflatables are SO stable, roll up small but can be a PITA as well.
Hard bottoms are tippy, harder to store but row better and don't need patching...as often  :D
Dingy's truly are a big dilemma for any cruiser.
So much rests on how and where they will be used...
I doubt there is anywhere near "the perfect dingy" out there and if someone came up with one at a decent price...I'm sure they could sell the rights and retire!!

Virtually everybody has a dinghy / tender unless you just sail from marina to marina.    The smaller the sailboat the bigger the problem of what do do for a tender.   No doubt we have members with 50' yachts, but probably more with 30 footers.   I'm curious what sort of novel ideas for tenders are out there.  Even without the liferaft consideration, a tender is a problem on a small boat.   Unless it's a soft bottom inflatable, it's always going to be in the way.   Trailing a dinghy is a great way to lose one.

                                           H.W.

                                     H.W.

[ralay]

We have a Pudgy with a sail kit but no liferaft kit.  PP stipulates that you store your dinghy upright once the liferaft kit is installed or else you'd crush/chafe through the gear which is packaged on top of the gunnels.  Storing an inverted dinghy is hard enough.  Dunno where we'd put it upright. 

[Frank]

Disclaimer.. I am NOT saying this is 'the answer' at all.

Just sharing how I dealt with an 85 mile offshore crossing.
This was double as it was a slat floor roll-up.

It was rolled and put over the hatch, under the dodger....out of the way.
Small boats fore decks get way small with a dingy up there (been there...)

For my shorter crossings now I tend to tow. (I know...I know...)

Anyhoot....the roll up went well off shore.

50fters? Nah...

30's .....probably..

Ive crossed the gulf stream and cruised Bahamas in a 20, 22, 23, 25, 26 and now moved up to a proper "yacht"... a 27  ;) ;) ::)

[CharlieJ]

Almost 12,000 miles, towing a dink. Both an inflatable and a hard dinghy.

Twice across the Gulf of Mexico, Twice across the Gulf Stream, Tongue of the Ocean, etc.

Bruce Bingham, the designer of the Flicka, towed dinghies thousands of miles also, all up and down east coast

Can you lose a dink that way? For sure-  if towing,, you accept the fact the dinghy is expendable. If the Stuff hits the rotating device and the mother ship is endangered, the dink gets cut away. Fact of life.

My boat is too small to store a dink on deck- even my 6'6" Minipaw. So I tow.

Oh- and NOBODY on this board has a 50 foot yacht. Look again at the name- Small boat, Long distance :)

Picture taken, open Gulf of Mexico, about 100 miles offshore, single hand

[CharlieJ]

And this video, shot about 35-40 miles out into the Gulf, bound for Florida from Texas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PhBRB1qkpk

[ralay]

We were told a dinghy towing tale of caution by another experienced sailor that I'll share.  CJ might know it too, so correct me if I'm bungling the details.

This fellow was barreling downwind in the Gulf of Mexico when the hard dinghy he was towing turned turtle.  Inverted, the shape of the bottom was such that the dinghy dove immediately.  The force was so great that it pulled the stern of his Westsail 28 so far down into the water that it back flooded the loop in his exhaust and hydrolocked his engine.  He couldn't turn upwind to douse the sails with the dinghy holding his stern, so he cut the dinghy loose.  When he tried to start his engine (either to recover the dinghy or later, I can't remember) he bent a rod.  Had to sail back to Texas without an engine and pay for a new dinghy and an engine rebuild.  Thankfully he was the type of guy we routinely saw sailing into his slip.

I'd previously considered the idea that one might lose a towed dinghy, but I hadn't considered the idea of having the dinghy try to swamp the stern.  For him, it sounds like it all happened pretty fast.  I'm sure it depends a lot on your dinghy and your boat.  I doubt an inflatable or a bouyant, hollow dinghy like our PP would dive.  It's also probably easier to pull down a canoe stern than a big fat transom, but it's food for thought.  It's an example of how things can rapidly snowball in unexpected ways, even for folks who know what they're doing. 

[Lars]

I always carry a dinghy on deck now . Sometimes two, we traveled all over the bahamas with this configuration  the inflatable is a  apex rib 8 with huge tubes and the kayak is a 10 foot cheapo. I never deflate the apex

[Owly055]

I always carry a dinghy on deck now . Sometimes two, we traveled all over the bahamas with this configuration  the inflatable is a  apex rib 8 with huge tubes and the kayak is a 10 foot cheapo. I never deflate the apex

What would it take to make the Apex serve as an emergency survival raft?      Here's how I would approach using something like this for a life raft.   First I would look into how an exposure canopy could be mounted.   That might involve bonding a strip of material with a bunch of eyelets to the upper side to attach the canopy, and of course designing and having someone fabricate the canopy.   Lifelines to clip your safety harness into would be critical also.   I would assume that the basic life raft conversion and survival gear would be contained in a separate bag that could be clipped onto the raft and would float, and that in a heavy weather sinking situation, you would don survival suits, clip on the conversion bag and any other critical stuff, hook in your safety harness, and abandon ship.    You would then have to make the best of it, depending on survival suits to protect you from the elements until the weather moderated enough to set up the canopy, etc.   Hopefully you would have EPIRBs on the survival suits.  Later in the game when the weather allowed, you would pull in the trailing bag, pull out and attach the survival canopy, and lash containers with supplies, water, etc inside the raft, and if you had a way to step a mast and sail a bit.  The problem being that there is no good way to use a lee board with an inflatable, though a rudder would be easy.   Sailing ability would be pretty marginal at best.   You'd be limited to a fairly narrow range of sailing points, though perhaps the paddles could be rigged for lee boards, or even support a small inflatable outrigger.    The whole thing would be an interesting challenge, and not a simple one.   The challenge of figuring out how to step a mast on an inflatable would in itself be a significant challenge.
      It's a lot easier just to trust in one of those factory built life rafts, but at 50 pounds and 6 person capacity, you'd better hope it works and that it hangs together long enough for you to be rescued.   They are really designed for 24 hours or less with the USCG steaming rapidly to the rescue.   Mid ocean your chances of survival would be really poor unless there were a ship nearby.

                                                                                              H.W.

[Owly055]

     Those of us who stay close to home will probably never see life threatening weather conditions.... depending on where home is.   Off both coasts of the US things can turn brutal very rapidly.  Coastal sailors, normally have options.   Bays and harbors to duck into, though bar conditions off the West Coast often make it virtually impossible to enter safe harbors, forcing people to remain offshore and tough it out.   Once one starts making passages, weather it be in the Caribbean or trans Atlantic, or to the Pacific Islands, the risks get higher.   Atlantic and Pacific crossings are so long that anything can happen as you sail beyond your initial weather window.   The Polynesia to New Zealand run so many people make every year can be deadly when things go wrong, as can the Tasman Sea.  On the other side of the world, there is the Bay of Biscay, and of course what is probably the most dangerous commonly sailed stretch of ocean in the world, the passage down the Mozambique Channel and around the Cape of Good Hope......... Not to mention the other three great southern capes.   
     If you want to see the world, chances are you will eventually encounter dangerous conditions that can result in loss of your boat, so survival strategy is pretty important.  When I look at sailboats,  I wonder what could be done internally to make the boat itself your survival pod.   Survivability and convenience seem to be mutually exclusive.   Dividing a boat into sections that can be isolated from each other to save the whole would be a real challenge, a challenge that would be virtually impossible in a boat with a liner.  There are logical divisions, but the inconvenience of having hatches that you have to step and crouch through like the interior of a submarine to get into the V Berth, or head or hanging locker, or storage areas beneath the settees that are not easy or convenient to access, sectioned off bilges with water tight covers, eliminating virtually all through hull fittings, etc. pretty much eliminates this possibility for most people.   The aft area offers more possibilities with cockpit lockers and lazerette, and the area beneath the cockpit, all of which could in theory at least be made sealable for flotation or to prevent damage in the area from flooding the entire boat.  The area beneath the V berth is a logical division also, as is the chain locker.   I don't know about anybody else, but I would  much rather try to exist under an exposure canopy on a partially flooded boat than take to a raft.   At least you have the possibility of locating and isolating the damage, and perhaps pumping or bailing out most of the boat, and maybe access to food and water.   Vacuum packing food would be a good strategy for boats, as cheaply as the machines can be had.  Bottled drinking water is also dirt cheap and makes sense.   I've heard "budget sailors" criticized for not having life rafts, EPIRBs, or SSB radios, but of those the EPIRB is really the only absolute necessity for a long distance cruiser if you have a dinghy that will serve in a pinch.  For long distance cruising it's a bit foolish not to have a marine SSB, considering the fact that the test involves only your ability to fill out a form and send in money ;-)   With SSB, you are not alone out there, as it reaches much farther than VHF.   For those of us on a budget, you have to draw the line somewhere though.   I would draw it at the throw away life rafts, but unlike many people, I wouldn't set to sea without tools and materials to fabricate things from wood, metal, or fiberglass.   You can do a lot with a cordless drill, grinder, hacksaw, and files for example if you have some materials aboard.   

                            Time to quit....................   I'm kind of rambling here.   I've been doing some reading about the various things that go wrong at sea.  I hope never to face most of them, and to be prepared to deal with many of them.   My personal inclination is to expect the worst and prepare for it, and experience shows that the worst seldom if ever happens if you ARE prepared for it.    I think Murphy has something to do with that principle.

                                                                             H.W.

[stumpy]

Several years ago I grew tired of the ramp chaos at Drano Lake (WA state side of the Columbia River) during spring Chinook salmon fishing.  Truly "combat fishing," but durn nice fish.  Decided to use my bombard AX3...easy to launch anywhere, and an electric motor along with a little seagull if the winds picked up, which they always do.  Unfortunately the AX had no keel, and lateral stability was nil...absolutely miserable trying to steer and fish in more than 7 kts. 
So...went home and welded up a frame outta scrap 3/4" light tubing with a seat and a couple of big nuts outboard to mount pivoting leeboards...clamped some schedule 40 plastic pipe scraps to it for rod and net holders...and voila!  Handled great in winds with the frame strapped to the tubes.  The guys in their 30 grand jetboats laughed, but we could turn on a dime, caught our limit, and load/recovery time was a total of about 10 minutes instead of an hour of bad juju.  Don't have that inflatable anymore, but have used that rack dozens of times to great effect.  Fits all the dinks I've used it on.  Often thought about mounting a rig on the frame...this thread has convinced me to make that the next project.  I'll dig it out of the barn and snap a pic.

[Owly055]

I'm waiting for that picture ;-)   Is your frame kind of roughly similar to the one in the top photo?   Columbia river winds truly can be wild in my experience.   I'm wondering with all the campaigning to take dams out, when they will start adding the Columbia River dams to the list.   That nonsense on the Klamath river makes me angry.   I've been reading the arguments for the pro-removal folks and they make no sense whatsoever.   They're already agitating about taking the dams out of the Colorado, and have concocted a bunch of specious arguments to prove that there will then be MORE rather than less water available for everybody.   Dams are an imperfect solution, but the only one that captures spring runoff when water is least needed and provides it later in the year when it is most needed.   Evaporation and seepage are cited as major problems, but they are only problems if one ignores the benefits from them.   Evaporation has a significant climatic benefit.  What goes up must come down, and likewise seepage results in more ground water being available.... somewhere, though it isn't controllable, and creates springs, etc.   Where do people thing ground water comes from?   

                                                             H.W.

                       

Several years ago I grew tired of the ramp chaos at Drano Lake (WA state side of the Columbia River) during spring Chinook salmon fishing.  Truly "combat fishing," but durn nice fish.  Decided to use my bombard AX3...easy to launch anywhere, and an electric motor along with a little seagull if the winds picked up, which they always do.  Unfortunately the AX had no keel, and lateral stability was nil...absolutely miserable trying to steer and fish in more than 7 kts. 
So...went home and welded up a frame outta scrap 3/4" light tubing with a seat and a couple of big nuts outboard to mount pivoting leeboards...clamped some schedule 40 plastic pipe scraps to it for rod and net holders...and voila!  Handled great in winds with the frame strapped to the tubes.  The guys in their 30 grand jetboats laughed, but we could turn on a dime, caught our limit, and load/recovery time was a total of about 10 minutes instead of an hour of bad juju.  Don't have that inflatable anymore, but have used that rack dozens of times to great effect.  Fits all the dinks I've used it on.  Often thought about mounting a rig on the frame...this thread has convinced me to make that the next project.  I'll dig it out of the barn and snap a pic.