Glad to see you''re not giving up the hard dink. I sailed from PNW to Panama and beyond on a 30 foot boat and a 8 foot hard non-motorized dink.
Ours fit BARELY upside down between the mast and
anchor hawsepipe. We used 2 stantion bases bolted to the deck in front of the mast. Into these fit 3/4 inch SS tubing coming from a setup on the stern of the dink that also used stantion bases and a 90 degree elbow. The dink sat upside down resting a couple of inches off the deck when it was set in its brackets (we used lock pins through holes drilled in the tubing to keep it there underway). The bow was tied to a forward
cleat with its painter. This setup allowed us to open our forward
hatch a little in any weather since the dink was on top. We also rigged a
line from stern to bow on the up-turned dink that functioned as a place to hold onto going forward since the dink took up so much deck space.
Two people could deploy or lift it using a halyard.
10,000 miles with no problems in any weather.