TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands How far in dingies

Always curious on how far people are willing to go in their dinghies? Leverick-> BEYC? Great Harbour -> White Bay? Harris' -> Great Harbour? In the past we have been very conservative with where we would travel via dingy, but I see others down there who appear to go much further. Curious on what people thought was comfortable/safe?

My opinion: great harbour-white bay with 4 people no problem.I think Leverick Bay to BEYC needs a bigger dingie than the normal ones.

Have done GH to WB with 4-6 people several times. Always have my hand held radio and a light with me.

We did it in the Dinghy Poker Run for several years. We actually dinghied the whole north sound. Yes, it can get choppy and wet, but it's a load of fun <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Groovin.gif" alt="" />
I don't do pictures, but someone can post some picks. We had some dinghies pretty loaded with people, pretty funny

We have done Leverick to BEYC/Saba during the day and it was fine. A little choppy from the wind but all that meant was we got a little soaked on the way there. Quickly learned that it is better to go fast in those conditions! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

We have also done great harbour to white bay with no problem. those are the only two that I can speak of with confidence. again both in good light condition and good weather.

It isn't simply a function of how far people are willing to go. It really depends on not only current weather/sea state and how comfortable one is with " current" conditions, but also in forecast, experience and expectation that " current conditions" will hold for the time duration including the return trip.

I don't consider myself a wimp or a wuss, but I was brought up on a body of water in New England that is known for changing faster than Superman could strip in a phone booth. I KNOW how to " see and forecast " in that environment, and I KNOW what happens if my back is turned to the change that is ( or could be) oncoming.

Getting wet IN the dinghy in the BVI is not really a huge deal, and AFAIC it is totally acceptable. YMMV. Getting DUMPED OUT of the dinghy because I didn't know the daily weather or current/tide or wind patterns or place the safety priority above the < I gotta go there> is not acceptable.

When I was younger, reckless, and naive I traveled great distances with small boats and outboards. If you travel the world by boat you will find some fisherman with outboards well away from shore in open water.

In very general terms check to see which way the wind and current are moving if the motor dies or you end up in the water you will travel with the current, the wind or both. If either one of those are moving in the direction of open water think twice.

If you must travel outside of the anchorage where you will be alone without other boats in earshot. Consider throwing the flare kit in the boat, consider taking a gallon of drinking water, consider putting a cell phone connected to the network in something water proof. Certainly take a hand held VHF if you have it. Note: The range down at the surface of the water will be very limited. Do not count on anyone hearing you. Always bring a PFD that you do not mind wearing in the water for a long time and a good hat. A piece of soft line to tie everyone who might end up in the water together might also be a good idea. Lastly the low profile boat can easily be missed by a larger boat's helmsman focused on his newest bit of electronics, romance, or finding the beer someone else put away. There are many reasons to consider not putting yourself in a small boat with no one else around for the moment.

To some real world experience. Upwind and downwind can be very different. I can think of one late afternoon trip from the Caneel Bay anchorage to US C&I. The boat was full with more females than males. Most of the ladies were sporting arms full of stuff they thought they needed for the big trip to St. John. The trip over was uneventful and the same with C&I. All a great day until the time came to turn the dingy around with the sun setting and head upwind. By the time we got back to our boat. Everyone and their stuff was drenched and all the girls were cold and unhappy. The guy(me) driving the boat will always get the blame.

One night in North Sound I saw a group head off in a packed dinghy for dinner downwind. Later that night as they were returning I heard and witnessed one of the finest display of lady profanity I have ever experienced. The girls got drenched in their "good" clothes with their "good" stuff. Hubby in all the distraction trying to drive a dingy upwind at night managed to foul the dinghy prop in a super yacht toy painter hanging off the stern... note to all... sometimes wet wives can be a lot like wet cats.

So after all the dribble I would recommend if you are going to leave the mooring field with a dinghy you do so upwind. If you start off downwind you may not know what going upwind will be like to return at the other end.

As a standing safety order on our boats anyone who leaves in a dinghy, kayak, or paddle board is expected to leave a note on the nav table stating what time they left and what direction they left in. If you ever have to go looking for someone? You will want to know how long they have been gone and what direction the went off in. This can be very important when you have active early risers aboard.

In any small boat upwind can be very different than downwind and fetch will change the sea state the further you get downwind. Just because you can go both ways next to the boat does not mean you will be able to make safe progress upwind at the turnaround point.

PM me if you want to hear a more adult story on not paddling off downwind....

We've had some memorable dinghy crossings: Great Harbor to Sandy Cay, Marina Cay to Trellis (I'll never forget the return trip on that one), and Leverick to Bitter End (I'm with UncleLuff on this one), and Caneel to Cruz Bay under a heavy swell.

Keep in mind you really can't paddle a dinghy in any kind of sea. I would never get out of bay at night in one. There was a local on Jost a few years ago who had the motor die, that wasn't found safe for 3 days. I believe he had made a run to tortola in it and was coming back. Just because one can do it, doesn't always mean it's a wise choice.

See link to video below skip ahead to five minutes and 30 seconds if you don't have time. If you do have time lots of familiar faces and good times.
Leverick to Sand Box to Saba to BEYC to Fat Virgin and back to Leverick

Loaded dinks

https://videos.smugmug.com/BVIs-1/BVI-Videos/i-Lh2SJGR/0/SMIL/Lh2SJGR.smil/master.m3u8

once you are wet, your wet.

been from Norman to Roadtown. Pub crawled all of North Sound. Went from White Bay to Sandy. Trellis to Monkey Point.

Where the conditions right? Yes!
I'm sure if you look back, I have proof that you can fill a dingy with water and it still floats....experience

Charter dinghy engines are about as reliable as a election year promise to not raise taxes. If the engine quits a dinghy is going where the wind blows. It can't be rowed into the wind. Keep that in mind when looking at a long dinghy run.
G

I always felt the opposite...I've never had the slightest problem with a dinghy engine. I figure since they're running a bit every day they're ok. I've had a leaky dinghy though, but never a spot of trouble with an engine.

You are very lucky!
G

Indeed he is lucky. Every dinghy motor has a finite life. In the carribean salt water in charter service that life is harsh. The criteria a charter company uses as to when to replace a dink engine is the number of problems it is having on charters. Though they don't intentionally send one out with a motor they don't assume will work for a week, there are some that are "problems" that the manager will say when it doesn't work on a charter for say a third time SUmmer and requires a call, "that's it, I'm calling the owner and getting a new one. In 9 years of charter we replaced one 15 hp Yamaha and it was having some issues when we sold the boat.

Quote

"the manager will say when it doesn't work on a charter for say a third time SUmmer and requires a call, "that's it, I'm calling the owner and getting a new one."

I do not doubt some manager on some dock somewhere said that once or even twice. But, that is nonsense. All the quality outboards are designed to last 4,000 hours or more. That is one hour a day for more than ten years. If a small outboard is difficult to start or has problems periodically there is an issue with a component that a proper technician should diagnose and replace the component. On the small dinghy outboards there are just not that many components to troubleshoot. If the compression is no longer adequate or the drive components inoperable that may be a different story. Intermittent issues is not a sound justification to toss the tool. Even with a brand new motor foul fuel, a fouled fuel system, or a poor electrical connector can produce intermittent trouble. To try and dodge all that when we rent we do our best to make the member of the crew with the least upper body strength test the outboard before we leave the dock.

Now to really derail this thread. I have long felt unease with the charter operators who try to match a yacht owned specific dinghy and yacht owned motor with each boat. I have greater comfort with the operators who have a pool of dinghies and motors to send out with each charter leaving the dock. A 24 hour weekend charter turnaround is not much time for a technician to troubleshoot ornery outboards. With no pool of outboards and dinghy's the options are limited when my wife or daughters says "This one is hard to start".

Please let me know where this dock is where outboards are trashed on the three strikes you are out practice. I may want to retire cleaning up and selling those outboards.

Spun a prop on a Moorings dinghy once. We could make head way at 2-3 knots but that was it. Would have been dicey if we were a long way from shore in a stiff breeze.

Or you aren't. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Rented 40' cat from Moorings, in May of this year. WHile we are in Cane Garden Bay, my buddy and co-captain Dale can't remember if he closed the hatches just as we start dinner. Heads back in the dinghy (at this point it is pitch dark. 10 minutes go by, 20, 30. We are all worried by this point. I ask for assistance from a couple on the dock to bring me back to the boat (much sign language as they didn't speak much English and I zero Spanish). Get back to boat, dingy tied up to stern. No Dale. Starting to get really worried at this point. More sign language to get the nice Spanish couple to bring me back to the dock. Thankful to see a very sweaty Dale grumpily eating his dinner. As I get back to the restaurant find out that the dinghy outboard had died half way to the boat, had to hale a passing dinghy to tow him to the boat (the same Spanish couple that transported me to and from!), tried to get the engine to start but no luck, gave up and paddle-boarded to shore to finally eat his cold dinner!

So there you go. Moorings was good though. They were out the next mooring to swap in a new engine. All told delayed us by about 30 mins. Lucky that we were in Cane Garden bay and not Jost or Anagada though!

Have done Saba Rock to Leverick, and Marina Cay to Trellis. I suppose if the dinghy was overloaded I wouldn't go that far, but with two in a 9' dinghy it was no big deal at all.

Did Diamond Cay to Sandy Cay and felt a bit nervous what would happen if motor failed. I always carry a waterproof VHS and 3way light on the dinghy regardless of the time of day or distance to be travelled.

Steve, I could not open the video

A word of caution if I may..you may be almost invisible to a fast running power boat with its bow in the air..be very careful and on the lookout..especially from Great Harbour to White Bay where there is lots of high speed traffic..stay as close to shore as feels sat wihtough putting yourselves in jeopardy. Tragically there have been at least two horrible accident in that area of a dinghy and a kayak being run down..

In this case, size does matter. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" /> We went with friends from Spanish Town to Saba Rock in their dinghy in July...

Not sure why. I just tried and it worked..anyone else have issues opening?

I could view it on my phone but not on my PC. When I tried to open it on the PC the prompt came up saying it did not recognize the file and to choose a program to try and open it. Media player didn't work.

When we think about how far we're going to go, I always think about having to row back if the engine was to fail.

Although we just got a dinghy for our boat since it's moving out of Moorings and it will have an 18hp engine and its new so that might give us a little more comfort going a bit further then we might otherwise (leverick to BEYC for example). It is also a decent size at 12'.

Riverfront, exactly what I got on my laptop.

Have windows 10 on my laptop and it opened fine.

In 1992 I did BEYC to Leverick and back in an Moorings fiberglass dinghy (anyone else remember those?)!

I was drenched and about flipped a few times, but I made it!

<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" />


But seriously.. we were doing a run back from White Bay to Great Harbor with 6 adults and 2 kids in the dingy. The two kids had on masks and snorkels because we were taking so much spray... After about 10 minutes of constant deluges my son in law who was driving quipped "We're more than half way there, and not quite half full of water. I think we're gonna make it!" <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

I've been meaning to thank you for posting the video on the dinghy poker run. I lost Gene in July and when I'm having a bad day I go back to watch this since it was so much fun. The first time I watched it there Gene and I were with Mappy towards the beginning and then towards the end with someone else(I can't recall her name). I miss all the good times we had with all of our new found friends from TTOL over the years. We were never back down after we sold "Rush" in '13 and really missed it. Sorry to be so sappy but you have made my day brighter.

I did that dinghy run from GH to WB and return ONCE in 1983. It was fine and all you of us made it fairly dry. I liken it to skydiving. Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane? Why dinghy over when there are a dozen perfectly good taxis? I have made that trip possibly 30 times by taxi. Plus you have more time to drink and eat and you have your personal Uber home.