Quote:
Originally Posted by erps
In the end we went with the Portabote. I figure it will be tougher, hold up better against the sun and the elements, it should be a lot easier to stow on deck, it should require a smaller motor to push it around and I understand they row decently. I'll save money on the up front purchase cost, save money by using a smaller outboard and save money by not having to worry about davits. Time will tell.
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I ordered a Honda 2 HP to push the Portabote I bought from Killarney Sailor. I also have a nesting
dinghy with a sail kit. Both are rowable and both are well under 100 lbs. in weight; the Honda is the short shaft version and is 28 lbs., something my five-foot tall wife can lift one-handed (part of the attraction).
I already own a Zodiac 310 RIB, but difficulties with davits and hauling it on deck, not to mention real issues in keeping control of the 9.9 HP four stroke in a seaway, convinced me that two lighter, more compact tenders with a smaller engine ultimately made more sense, as it means we can both be away from the boat, or at staggered times, and we can load the tenders separately for safety or just weight distribution.
We anticipate that the nesting
dinghy, being easily rowed, will be primarily "the people mover" to and from shore, and that the Portabote (being inherently more durable, or rather, we won't care so much if we spill stuff in it or get a few dings in it, would be the "cargo hauler" and would likely have the 2HP on it.
The 2HP is actually light enough to throw over a shoulder until one can locate a shoreside locker or some safe place for stowage: a nice alternative to having one's outboard stolen.
If we turn out to be wrong about all this, it is very easy to find an inflatable in paradise: Just buy one stolen from another cruiser who thought a painter off the stern was secure.
As for "following the pack", the pack includes a horde of SUVs driven by single-occupant soccer moms going 6 blocks to the video store, a behaviour wrong on so many levels that it is an exemplar of why to be suspicious of "the pack".
This spring, we'll be real-life testing the assembly and deployment times of the nesting
dinghy and the Portabote with and without the engine, passengers, sail-kit, etc., and will report here and in my blog.
For the record, if I was just going to the Caribbean for a few years, I would probably stick with the RIB/9.9 combo, but we are going a little farther afield and having a sailing
dinghy aboard in places that don't have a string of Hobie rental shacks on the beach will give my young son a nice anchorage activity: sailing from boat to boat looking for cruising kids.
Took her a while to not row in giant circles though... I often had three people in the boat and would row it to different fishing spots on Burke Lake, even in fairly high winds, it was pretty easy to do. With the 3.5 hp Tohatsu... it moves quite nicely. 
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