What makes a sailboat tender

And unlike a hard tender, an inflatable can bounce off your yacht without damaging anything. We offer replacement parts through our website and also have free online owners manuals for every model we carry. RIBs are also much easier to keep clean than the scuff-prone fiberglass of hard tenders. The tubes are made of high-quality non-absorbent material that lets you easily wash off or wipe down your dinghy to keep it looking nice.

Inflatable dinghies are bound to be more seaworthy than hard dinghies. Did we mention inflatable dinghies are just more fun? The incredible stability of the inflatable sides makes climbing out of the water a lot easier. You and your family can literally bounce off the walls. Determining the right-sized tender for your yacht is an important decision.

It depends on how you want to use your dinghy, of course, but a good rule of thumb is if you can go bigger, go bigger. Leave yourself some extra leg room and you, your family and your guests, including loyal pets, will be happier in the long run. The size of your storage area is often a good indicator of how large your dinghy should be. Also, keep in mind what the type of storage area for a dinghy on your yacht.

Choose a tender that can hold enough passengers and cargo. Again, assuming you have enough room to store it, we recommend assessing your dinghy needs and then considering the next size up to leave room for any extra guests, luggage or toys you may want to bring along.

Extra space not only helps you operate your dinghy more safely, but it also leaves room for comfort. Are you all about watersports and exploration? Water skiing and searching for secluded beaches to relax the day away or scuba diving on beautiful reefs?

Whatever it is you like to do, a proper tender gets you into the mix. If you like watersports, maybe a model with a little more size and power will suit you. There are cheap dinghy options out there, but you often get what you pay for. A proper tender is not only a representation of your yacht but an integral part of your boating experience. Our tenders are all about functionality without sacrificing style.

We pride ourselves on using the latest technology with only the best materials and precision European craftsmanship. We manufacture all of our tenders in our ,square-feet headquarters in Europe. A team of industry experts — including ex-military and aeronautical engineers — seasoned craftsmen and designers make sure that no detail is overlooked.

We take pride in knowing we produce premium dinghies for amazing adventures around the world. We have a wide range of tenders to choose from to match your needs and preferences:. What does tender mean Lets simplify things: A tender boat is one that heels easily. A stiff boat is one that resists healing. Most tender boats will heel easily to a point before they eventually stiffen up. Your older designed CCA boats had long keels and short waterlines They were designed to be tender and pick up waterline as they heeled over.

This type of boat sails with a lot of heel in moderate breezes. Roger Long. Nov 22, 3, Endeavour 32 Portland, Maine. Ross said:. You can have form stability and dynamic stability. A large flat bottom boat will have form stability but when tipped past a certain point will had no dynamic stability and will capsize. The most proper use of the term is when a vessel heels enough to compromise steering and handling when carrying enough sail to provide the power necessary to make progress to windward.

This would be a design defect. It can also mean a boat like mine that likes to sail to windward at a generous heel angle but has the power and control to do so competently. The business of boats appearing to heel easily to a certain angle and then stop is not a function of hull form.

The ability to resist heeling increases at a nearly constant rate until the deck edge goes under and then the rate of increase drops off. At some point, the ability to resist wind force will start to decrease. What people are observing is the fact that the ability of the wind to heel the vessel drops off as the vessel heels since less sail area is exposed to the wind.

Roger, Apparently I have been reading text written by folk quoting others no more knowledgeable than themselves. Thank you for the correction.

Jun 7, Hunter Williamsburg. Tender is the night. Scott Fitzgerald. Aug 24, 3, Nassau 34 Olcott, NY. Tender boats are not bad. Often the engine needs to be raised and inch or two, which can be done by fastening a piece of hardwood to the top of the transom. By having less of the drive in the water your dinghy will not only run faster but run in shallower water without hitting bottom. The other very simple adjustment sailors often overlook is the trim adjustment. If the engine is trimmed or angled out, the boat will run faster and dryer, but will have a harder time getting on plane.

Trim the engine in, and it will get on plane more easily. However, it will run more bow down, resulting in a wetter ride. Most cruisers figure out very quickly that storing oars on top of the tubes is a pain.

With that in mind, one of the first upgrades you may want to do is to glue additional D-rings inside the boat so that you can secure them there. That said, modern outboards have become so reliable that having oars for back up propulsion is simply not necessary. Indeed, for most cruisers, the most common use for an oar is as a push-pole to shove the dinghy off the beach.

A 6ft pole with markings at 1ft increments is also a handy depth gage if you are approaching a beach in murky water, such as we commonly encounter on the Chesapeake. While nonethanol fuel can be found in many places, from time to time you will find you have no choice but to use fuel containing ethanol.

There are a few tricks that will help you manage ethanol fuel without problems. First, get rid of your six-gallon fuel tank and go with one that holds three gallons, since three gallons is still enough fuel to run a Granted, a three-gallon tank will require more frequent stops at the fuel dock. However, making frequent stops will also keep your fuel turning over quickly, a key point as ethanol fuel goes bad if it sits for a long time. The other important tool for managing ethanol is having a transparent in-line filter, like a tempered glass West Marine Clear View Filter since it will allow you to see if and when your fuel starts going bad.

The first indication that ethanol fuel is going bad is that it becomes cloudy. Fuel passing through a filter also runs more slower than fuel in the line, which will allow any suspended water particles to drop out. Beyond that, it is important to use your outboard frequently over the sailing season.

Equipment that is used regularly runs reliably and you want to burn up the fuel to keep the fuel tank fresh. If you carry your tender on davits, take precautions in a seaway. Life jackets: In my cruising, I have found that running around in the dinghy apparently makes me much more visible to the local marine law enforcement than the main boat.

We keep two life jackets and a waterproof copy of our registration in a small sail bag under the seat in the dinghy at all times. Anchor: For the first five years that we cruised with an inflatable, each time we landed at a beach we would carry the dinghy up the beach above the tide line.

Eventually, we had an epiphany and bought an anchor. Now we simply approach the beach and toss out the anchor. A small claw anchor will hang on the transom, out of the way. Navigation lights: If you cruise in Florida and are in the dinghy after dark you there is a pretty good chance that you will be stopped if you do not display navigation lights. The navigation rules specify that if your dinghy can run faster than 7 knots you must have red and green sidelights and an all-round white light.

If your dinghy cannot plane, then a flashlight is all that is required under the navigation rules, but in Florida, you would not want to be caught operating with just a flash light, so almost everyone has an all-round white light for nighttime travel in the dinghy. Before heading out make sure that you check the legal requirements for your local cruising grounds. Air pumps: It is not necessary to carry an air pump in the dinghy unless you bought that used one.

However, if your storage solution involves deflating the dinghy and rolling it up each time you go sailing, a low-pressure high volume 12 volt inflator pump can be mighty handy. If you have a high-pressure air floor you will want to have a low-volume, high-pressure pump. I found that even with an athletic year-old son, a foot pump was not adequate to get the air floor fully inflated. For a high-pressure air floor dinghy, you will appreciate a two-speed electric pump.

Odds and ends: Other gear you might want to carry when you are off exploring includes a dry bag with bug spray, a multitool, spare engine lanyard and a hand held VHF always comes in handy.

Tube covers: Finally, canvas covering for the tubes, also known as chaps, are important if your dinghy is used year-round, especially in the tropics.

In fact, chaps offer several advantages. First, they provide UV protection to the fabric. Second, they provide a first line of defense against slits and punctures.

Unfortunately, it is fairly common to accidentally put a hole in the top of the tube as the crew steps out onto the dock and the dinghy rubs against the pilings or gets under the dock.

In fact, over the years I think I have seen more holes above the rub rail than below the rail. Some chaps have straps and buckles to hold a pair of oars inside the dinghy, while chaps with several mesh pockets will give you places to store things like the anchor line, a second painter, bug spray and sunscreen. Conclusion While traditional dinghies may continue to provide therapeutic exercise during an afternoon row through the mooring field or as a sailing tender, the inflatable dinghy provides an entirely different kind of utility, enhancing the traditional role of the dinghy as basic transportation to shore, by extending the capabilities and range.

With an inflatable, you can go further, explore new places and have new experiences not possible with a rowing tender. Your journey continues even after the anchor is down. A fabric cover for the tubes will extend the life of a dinghy, especially in the tropics.

Photo by Peter nielsen. There are two fabric choices used in inflatable boats. Both have excellent performance and durability. PVC coated polyurethane cloth is lighter weight and more flexible. It is good fabric if you are cruising seasonally or if you store your boat deflated. PVC fabric can be heat welded, and heat welded seams are virtually leak proof. PVC tenders hold air exceptionally well. Neoprene coated nylon fabric, Hypalon, is heavier and all the seams must be hand glued.

This is the material to use if you are using the dinghy full time in the tropics. Regardless of the coating material used, manufacturers use different weight cloth as the base of the fabric. A denier fabric has less than half the woven material of 1, denier fabric. Not all boat manufacturers use this scale, some use desitex and other materials that make it hard to compare fabric between various brands.

The staff at an experienced inflatable boat shop can help you make the comparison between brands. Higher denier means stronger fabric. The lowest priced inflatables have unsupported fabric.