Box-vision and dinghy design...

As the quest for a new primary dinghy for "So It Goes" continues, I find that as "out of the box" as I pride myself being, I still suffer from "box-vision" more often than I care to admit...

For instance...

Part of my thinking process recognizes that the ubiquitous RIB that passes for a standard dinghy these days is a long way from being an optimum choice but still I find myself continuing to include a RIB in my thought process, simply because everyone else does.

RIB's have all of the disadvantages of a rigid dinghy, as well as all of the disadvantages of an inflatable dinghy and, in the matrix of the two types, keeps bloody few of either's advantages.

Face it, your basic RIB has some issues... RIBs are actually heavier and take up as much or more space than a hard dinghy, they are inefficient in terms of power use to the point that most are simply impossible to row, and should I mention that they are EXPENSIVE? I won't even bother to talk about various repair & upkeep issues, and the dreaded dinghy butt.

The more I look at the problems associated with RIBs the more I know that they are sorta/kinda the worst way to go...

The problem is that being the de facto standard, everyone assumes they are the right choice and that any other choice becomes a sort of heresy.

I noticed that someone is selling a used Hobie Mirage locally for $1600 (about $1000 off the new price) and when I saw the ad my first reaction was "It's expensive". Having thought about it for a while, it is actually a whole lot better deal than any of the RIBs or inflatables around so in bang-for-the-buck terms, the two-person kayak with the Mirage drives is actually something of a killer deal... So why the "It's expensive" vibe?

We don't see kayaks being a real boat but more of a "toy", so as a result don't see a "toy" being able to pull its weight in the workaday world that is the lot of the cruising dinghy.  Add in the fact that for us to see a kayak's potential we have to be able to look outside that box and admit that the best possible dinghy may not look exactly like what we think it should.

The Hobies are really a bad example, as they are just one avenue of many kayak designs that are out there... The kayak world is something of a hotbed of new ideas, niche markets and real competition which means you'll find your buying dollar goes a lot further than in the RIB world.

Outside of misconceptions about what a dinghy should look like, we have the very real issue of how in the hell do you store something nearly fifteen feet in length on a 34-foot boat? Which is why I'm not buying that Hobie for $1600...

So, I keep coming back to this conundrum and hoping that someone (a Boat Bits reader perhaps) will come up with some cunning plan regarding a more sensible dinghy/kayak that makes sense in a way we have all missed because most of us are too far inside the box to see outside of it.

Listening to Les Cris de Paris

So it goes...