Lee, I have had no personal experience with the Whaler style dinghy, but they were very popular before inflatables appeared.
We are on our second RIB inflatable. When the first wore out (after 11 years of daily, sometimes quite rugged, use) we bought another of the same brand and model, a Caribe 10' deluxe (has a locker in the bow) in white. We power it with a 30 HP Johnson manual start with electric start added bolted to the transom. We have found, as I expected, that having both the manual and the electric start options have worked out wonderfully well. The electric start is reliable and a great convenience for everyday use, and especially nice if the engine stalls during some dicey maneuver. On the rare event that the battery goes flat or a wire corrodes through we still have the pull-start to get us home. There are charging coils under the flywheel. In addition to the electric start we added a depthfinder so we could keep from running aground in unfamiliar areas and so we could survey the path ahead for the big boat (8' draft) when need be. There are also permanently mounted running lights and an automatic bilge pump. I have calculated the buoyancy of the inflated tubes to be 1800 lbs. With the drain plug pulled and two people aboard the boat still navigates very well. When underway the water completely drains out. The "built in fenders" make coming along side other vessels and docks very convenient. While we normally carry the dinghy in side davits in port (dragging it behind when underway) but we do look forward to the day we can lift the boat up onto the poop deck when underway and for servicing. I cannot imagine a more perfect dinghy for us. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Gloucester MA > And, while the fiberglass tender appears to be the better choice for > indestructibility, am I messing up here by not picking the hard > bottom inflatable? > > _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
