A good friend of ours, Bruce on Different Drummer, heard me bitching about how wet my dinghy is. He commented that we were ahead of the curve. When I asked him what he met, he said we had a year two dinghy even though it was our first year out.

Apparently, the majority of cruisers start out with their weekend dinghy. You know, that one that is about a half step up from a pool toy? The one the folds up into a 15 square inch bag and fits in the lazarette with no problem? Yeah, thats the one with it's 1/2 horse power outboard that looks more like a kitchen mixer than a real outboard.

That dinghy is about as useful out here as the ferret is doing the dishes. Lots of water, everything wet and not much to show for it.

Next comes the second year dinghy. The one that is a full 9 feet long, with a drop in rigid floor. Most sport a 4 to 8 horse power outboard. These dinghies would have been considered Mercedes back in your home cruising ground, but out here they are barely adequate.

I mean don't get me wrong, if thats as big as you can carry, or all you can afford, then you have to make do with what you have. Ours has been mostly adequate, except when the wind is over 10 knots, or we have to go more than 1 mile to reach our destination.

Where ours really falls apart is in trying to get the two of us up on plane in a harbour with any chop at all. Forget about traveling 5 or 6 miles out to a good reef site or anything like that. It's just not safe.

Bruce's explanation was that eventually, every long term cruiser will get to a year three dinghy. This is either a rigid inflatable or a full out fiberglass skiff, powered by at least 15 horse power and able to get you several miles into town or out to the reef in safety and relative comfort.

I had heard and read about the importance of a dinghy for extended cruising and I thought ours was up to the challenge, but I was way off. The first thing we do when we get back to the states is trade our dinghy in and get the biggest, most obnoxiously powered skiff that will fit on our davits.

From experience, I can say that most third year dinghies are the rigid inflatable kind. I am leaning towards a fiberglass skiff like the ones from Carolina Skiffs or Boston Whaler. The difference in my opinion being that if you want to do a lot of reef diving on the ocean side, the skiffs, although not as fast as a rigid inflatable, offer more stability, longer range and better handling in bigger swells.