On 6/8/2016 1:21 PM, David Grah via montgomery_boats wrote: Hi David, Any dinghy for a small boat is a compromise until you get up to about a 38 footer where you then can have the luxury of maybe a 12 foot dinghy that will carry four people and not be so low in the water that every passing wave makes you bail the boat. Our first dinghy was fiberglass, 9 feet long; had good carrying capacity; but had to be towed everywhere we sailed. In deteriorating weather conditions you don't want to be towing a big dinghy slowly filling with water splashing over the sides becoming a sea anchor; or it charges down a wave front and rams the stern. (Ocean conditions in New England) A neighbor had a 9 foot AVON dinghy that he no longer needed. I bought it. Now I could stow it down below when we were making a passage; pull it out;unroll it and all the bits and pieces, pump it up, and Voila, a dinghy. But, the center tube was as high as the side tubes. The take-apart oars were too short; and your seating position was all wrong for rowing. Again, after a few time where I had to row the four of us back to our boat at anchor; .... way out there, .... I came to the conclusion that the only way the AVON would function was with an outboard motor; or sell it, and buy a Dyer fiberglass dinghy that rowed well and was seaworthy. When the crew was still at home, I needed a dinghy that would hold four adults. Later when they were at college and just the two of us were on board the Dyer 7'-9" was nearly ideal. The area where you use a dinghy also determines what is acceptable and what isn't. In our New England waters you often rowed against a 10-15 knot wind for half a mile or maybe more. (There was no flat calm at night) Then good rowing characteristics were paramount. At one time I tried to solve the rowing against the wind problem by buying a 2 HP Evinrude outboard. It worked sometimes..... but more often it didn't. Why? Well with four of us in the dinghy and goodly waves in places like Newport Harbor, with water taxis, lots of power boats creating wakes and waves, a water burble at the back of the dinghy flung salt water spray upwards. The Evinrude had no cowling around the engine, eg, the cylinder, spark plug, and the high tension wire hung out in the breeze and very promptly got soaked with the salt water spray off the stern. The engine quit running immediately, so there you were, with a fully loaded dinghy with the wind on the nose, rowing back to our boat that was anchored far up in Brenton Cove. OK, if the spark plug wire gets wet and stops the engine by grounding out the spark, now what? (Using a Kleenex doens't get rid of the salt spray so the engine won't start again. Gin didn't work either.) My next solution was to buy an old SEAGULL with a long shaft at a Tag Sale, which got the plug wire much higher up in the air. That solved the problem; except for occasionally hitting someone in the face with the starter cord. If you have a flat lake with no wind, and no current, almost anything that floats will function as a dinghy. If you are in rough water with wind and tide against you, then you want a more optimum rowing machine. The plastic kayak sounds like a good solution if you are a solo sailor, but even then where do you put the groceries; the ice; the 6 pack of beer; and the antique you just bought at a Flea Market? That's where I'm coning from. Ciao, Connie PS Flat calm and smooth water anchorages are dreamy fairy tales. Reality is, on the ocean there is always wind; there is always a tidal flow; and even well protected harbors have launch services running till 1 AM making lots of waves as they charge through an anchorage, picking up or dropping off their passengers.
I can't believe I find myself disagreeing with Connie. I don't recall that ever happening before! We've used a cheap inflatable as the dinghy for our Montgomery 15. Although I am sure it doesn't row well at all compared to a hard shell boat, it has perfectly met our needs. The best thing is we don't have to tow it around all the time. We just pull it out, blow it up in about 2 minutes with an electric inflator, put in some good after-market oars, use it, pull the oars out, deflate it with the inflator, and stow it under the port cockpit seat. We typically don't row miles at a time but we have taken fair distances, albeit in fairly calm waters. Has always worked great, unless we get lazy and try to tow it.
David GrahBishop CaliforniaMontgomery 15 - Sky
Message: 5 Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2016 17:44:32 -0500 From: Conbert Benneck <chbenneck@gmail.com> To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: M_Boats: Anchor rollers... Message-ID: <308644e4-e035-eb3e-320a-e26dd06f91e5@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
On 6/7/2016 4:22 PM, Jazzy wrote:
Hi Jazz,
Inflatable dinghies sound great in principle, but, as you will soon discover, are absolutely miserable to row. The seating position is wrong; the oars are a joke. Been there with a AVON inflatable dinghy for all the same reasons, but after one season gave up on that miserable piece of ..... and bought a fiberglass Dyer 7'-9" dinghy that rowed well and sailed well. It also was easy to tow behind our 29 footer.
The NYMPH dinghy is easy to build; is light enough so that it is easy to car-top on a roof rack (we had a VW-Jetta wagon); and tows very nicely behind the M15. It's a dinghy that works; doesn't wet you from power boat wakes; and is a pleasure to row.
Caio, Connie
Hiya Connie, right on all counts. And believe me I've been searching for a little corner in all the marinas! But what I've learned from the locals is that you can anchor for 90 days a year without much hassle from anyone, so long as you show up occasionally and your boat looks nice. ( some have said 75 days). Right next door are the million dollar houses with influential people.
There is only one guy on "Gypsy Rose" that has secured permanent anchorage from the town and that's the guy I've been talking to. Took him 10 years!! He has an actual ball with his name on it. Everyone else is chain and rode.
But being out there so much, I know most of the boats, and some have been anchored forever. Only one has the pink sticker of death on it (notice to pursue ownership) and it's just a messy eyesore of a boat.
So in summary, it appears possible to anchor all summer so long as you're neat about it and respectful. I ordered a little inflatable dinghy that I'll just drag or roll up and take with if I end up going this route. I'm slowly gathering all I need, but the courage! It's scary to me to leave my boat and hop on an airplane for a week at a time. I continue to scour for moorage. Tacoma has some, but I'd love to be in the harbor 7 min from home. I was offered a 30ft slip for 240.00 but just couldn't pull the trigger on that.
I'll keep you guys posted.
Jazz