[harvh]

I''m not familure with your geography, but we sail in the cold rocky Northwest corner of Washington. I chose an inflatable and have some mixed emotions about it. Its a good tender albeit subject to damage from sharp objects. A RIB that combines inflatable with a solid hull would be better. Still yet are new designs I''ve seen that look like an inflatable, but are made out of a hard plastic material that looks bullet proof.

I have use fold ups before and consider them only suitable for very calm conditions. We keep our inflatable ready to go at all times for crew safety. For day sails, we leave it at the slip and during periods the boat is not in use, we put it on deck lashed down with a cover for protection against UV.

Hope you get some ideas from this.