Most people start their recreational boating and sailing life with small boats that can be easily beached or winched from the water on a trailer at the boat ramp. If your love of boating leads you to move up to a larger boat, however, you will need a small boat known as a “dinghy” or “yacht tender” to get between the mother ship and the shore. 

This is a story about Classic Wooden Boat's selection process, of "trial and error", before commencing the building of a custom wooden Nutshell pram 9 foot 6 inch dinghy. You will be able to follow the building process in installments in a future article. A copy of the plan is illustrated below.

Which dinghy or tender is right for you?

Most cruising sized boats have deep keels and cannot approach too close to land other than at deepwater marinas or jetties. Even if you cruise in a shallow draft catamaran or a yacht with a retractable centerboard keel, you still need a dinghy.

On any cruise there will be times that you’ll want or need to anchor far from the beach, and a dinghy is an invaluable safety and maintenance aid on any yacht or cruising powerboat. You can use it to set extra anchors, to float around the hull of your yacht for the purpose of cleaning the topsides and the waterline, and of course, for its main purpose of ferrying people and supplies to and from shore. A good stable dinghy, is also an invaluable aid, as a fishing and diving platform for cruising boats.

Today's dinghies are available in two types: inflatable or rigid. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and the proponents of each type swear by them. Inflatable dinghies are sometimes called “Zodiacs,” as this is the trademark name of a well-known manufacturer responsible for introducing these boats to the market.

Rigid dinghies are built of wood or fibreglass, and are available from manufacturers or custom builders, or can be home built by the amatuer boat builder.

 

Inflatable dinghies have greatly improved in recent years and many are serious boats that can carry big motors and handle rough conditions. The biggest of these are only suitable for tenders on large yachts equipped with lifting davits to make them easy to carry and launch.

The major advantage of an inflatable dinghy is on the smaller cruising boat where space is at a premium. The inflatable can be rolled up and stored in a locker or on a small part of the deck during a passage and then inflated when you arrive at an anchorage and want to explore ashore. 

One disadvantage of an inflatable is that they don’t tow very well, so if your cruising involves lots of short hops from one anchorage to the other, you will have to deflate and stow the dinghy or drag it behind with a resulting loss of boat speed because of its resistance in the water.

Inflatable dinghies are quite expensive if you get one of superior, Hypalon construction quality. Usually,even the best ones will only last a few years when subjected to the rugged demands of everyday use in cruising. The cheap ones are so lacking in durability that they are not worth considering.

Another disadvantage of inflatable boats is that they do not row well at all, so you will have to carry an outboard and its fuel to power the dinghy. On the plus side, however, inflatables can carry a lot of weight in people and gear, and with a good motor can cover a lot of ground if you want to explore far and wide from your anchorage. 

As most cruisers are on the wrong side of fifty, with many in their sixties and seventies, the weight factor of the outboard and fuel, for an inflatable are simply untenable.