A dinghy dilemma

September 2023

By Christopher Birch

Lately I’ve been thinking about a new dinghy. That can’t happen though. It’s impossible. Our tender, Heidi, is like a member of our family, and replacing her is out of the question. There’s too much history. She’s too good a boat, she’s too proud a boat to be benched. And yet, a big problem is lurking, and I have a dinghy dilemma.

Heidi the dinghy takes up a lot of room on the foredeck. Photo by Christopher Birch

My father built Heidi in 1999 and since then we’ve rowed and towed her over 41,000 nautical miles, traveling as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as the Bahamas. She’s in excellent shape. With fresh paint every spring, she looks, feels, and I think is, as good as new. I’ve pontificated at great length on the merits of the boat in this publication, and to countless friends and strangers who stop to chat on the dinghy dock. I’ve even gone so far as to describe her as “perfect.”

“Almost perfect” would be a better way to put it because there is one problem: She doesn’t fit well on the foredeck of our 36’ Morris Justine. When she’s stowed up there, she makes most common foredeck tasks, like changing sails or setting the whisker pole or spinnaker, nearly impossible. She also interferes with our preventer line and our forward pole guy. Most importantly, I doubt she would do well on deck in an offshore storm.

We have no dinghy davits on our transom. They may work well on some boats, but on our sailboat, we think they would be both unsightly and unseaworthy. So, with most common dinghy storage options ruled out, we have always resorted to towing Heidi behind us. Fortunately, she tows extremely well. In all the miles on the towline, she has only flipped once (Buzzards Bay). With her flat bottom, she slides along astern with little drag; and thanks to her angled transom, spray and rainwater tends to slosh out the back so she never swamps. Even with a 30-knot northeast wind blowing us quickly down the coast of New Jersey in 10-foot seas, she just skipped along behind us like she was having fun. Towing the boat for long distances has been an unorthodox but fine solution for us in all our coastal cruising for the past 24 years.

Times change though, and 2024 is shaping up to be a little different for us with plans for an ocean crossing in the schedule. What worked in the past may not be suitable for our future. We clearly can’t cross an ocean with a dinghy on the towline; that’s ridiculous and even I know it. We also can’t cross an ocean with an oversized obstacle on the foredeck preventing us from safely sailing the boat. Instead, we need a new plan. Maybe we keep the tender and replace the mothership? Or maybe we splurge on a support vessel to follow us across with Heidi in her cargo bay? Or maybe this is a stupid hill to die on and I’m just being hard-headed. Maybe what we need is a different dinghy more suited for storage onboard our 36-foot boat.

This is primarily an internal struggle – and I hate to give up in the face of a challenge. Everyone told us it would be impossible to live without a rubber dinghy when coastal cruising. They were wrong. Everyone told us it would be impossible to survive without a dinghy engine when living aboard and cruising full time. They were wrong. Everyone told us life in the Bahamas would be impossible without the ubiquitous condom-craft for a tender. They were wrong. The naysayers peppered me with patronizing questions: How are you going to get the dog ashore when it’s windy? What if you need to go a long way by dinghy? What if you need to carry a lot of gear? The answer to all these questions is the same: You row harder for longer. And I did.

My heart softened a bit when a delicious looking bit of eye-candy caught my attention recently. The nine-foot Spindrift nesting dingy built of wood to plans from B&B Yacht Design looks even better than “perfect.” For storage, she breaks in two, and the forward half nests into the aft half. Once stowed, she’ll take up only a small fraction of the space on our foredeck, and she will sit flush to the deck entirely forward of the coach roof. These tenders reportedly row well and are even equipped with a sailing rig that would be a welcome addition.

Unfortunately, you can’t just saunter over to West Marine and purchase a Spindrift nesting dinghy. Each one is custom built, and at the moment I don’t have the time or space to build one. Instead, I’ve been scouring marina bulletin boards to find a boat someone else has already built. I’ll keep looking. I may even place an advertisement in the back of this magazine.

Then that voice in my head starts squawking, “Don’t give up the ship. Don’t be a quitter.” Maybe my wife and I could take turns rowing Heidi while the other sails the mothership – all the way across the ocean. I’ve got a dinghy dilemma and I need to keep thinking on it.

Last month we lost our dog, Bill, who sailed with us always. Now this month, we’re thinking of retiring our dinghy that has also sailed with us always. This isn’t going to be easy. For 41,000 miles and 25 years that boat has faithfully followed me around. We’re not getting a new puppy anytime soon, but maybe a glossy new, happy-go-lucky dinghy will help ease the hurt from our compound loss. We promise to lavish her with love.

Christopher Birch is the founder of Birch Marine Inc. on Long Wharf, Boston. He is now out cruising full-time with his wife, Alex, aboard their 36-foot Morris Justine. Follow their voyage at EagleSevenSailing.com.