Hello Dear!

Meet our new (to us) but barely used Fatty Knees dinghy, “Dear”.

She kind of fell into our laps. We had a nutshell pram that I didn’t particularly care for as a dinghy – it felt unstable, didn’t have a motor mount, the dog didn’t like it, and it needed a centerboard (which had broken a few months ago). It didn’t tow very well either, which made it not really fun to take over to Angel Island, or anywhere else, for a weekend.

Anyway, our good friend Michael said he had a friend who had this dinghy sitting in her backyard that was collecting dust, and she wasn’t using it. She had bought it a few years back, sailed it once in Tomales Bay, and never again. At 8′, it came with the full sail kit. This dinghy new with the sail kit was $5500+, and we nabbed it for $1700! The sail kit folds up into a nice little package that fits into one of the lockers on the boat, which makes it super portable as a cruising dinghy. And, it’s incredible stable and solid, and even has classic New England lines.

These little dinghies are very popular on the east coast, just like the Sabres, so the two are a good match. You can read more about them here and Cruising World did an interesting article about inflatables or these dinghies back in 2013 here. We do have an outboard motor that came with the sailboat, but we’re not likely to use it, even though Dear has a motor mount.

Once we have her cleaned up next weekend, I’ll measure the transom, get the name ordered, and affix it myself.

We’re looking forward to many weekends and weeks “cruising” in the Bay, offshore, and who knows where else. Another piece to the puzzle.