Is keeping an inflatable Dingy in the water a bad idea?

[merlin]

My inflatable has a soft bottom. If I keep it in the water in Southern California will I have a major problem with barnacles? Is there some kind of bottom paint for rubber bottom boats? Same questions for an engine.
Thanks

 

[MaddyDean]

I never used them but here is a link:

http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1%7C10918%7C296162%7C11000&id=311498

 

[Ididntdoit]

yes - use the inflatable bottom paint - it works - as for the motor, either tilt it up or use trilux 33 and make sure the anodes are good too.

 

[northern]

We have two 18 foot plastic kayaks we leave in salt water for the winter in Baja. Every 2 weeks we take them out and scrub the bottoms with plastic dish cleaning pads, takes about 10 minutes per kayak. You could probably do the same with your inflatable. I have seen people leave them in the water all summer and the bottoms are a mess. They did not paint the bottoms.

 

[Torque]

If you have to leave it in the water..... one really cheap and somewhat tacky trick that works ok as a short term solution is to buy a cheap inflatable mattress and pull it up onto it when you're away. They don't last super long, I went through a couple one summer when I was using that method. A small custom floating platform would be far preferable.

One consideration for bottom paint........ If you ever want to have your dinghy mounted on your boat..... I'd avoid the bottom paint. It can be removed from the bottom of the rigid hull if you have one but will forever leave traces of it's existence on the inflatable material (hypalon or PVC) if properly applied. Will look like hell if you do one of the flip up systems on the back of your boat...... a nice davit system that leaves your dinghy horizontal will be a little more forgiving. The barnacles are obviously not good for the dinghy but can be scraped off with some decent scrubbing and I was always able to get mine off completely but with a decent level of effort.

 

[Half Fast]

If you have to leave it in the water..... one really cheap and somewhat tacky trick that works ok as a short term solution is to buy a cheap inflatable mattress and pull it up onto it when you're away. They don't last super long, I went through a couple one summer when I was using that method. A small custom floating platform would be far preferable.

Tacky, trashy, ghetto - whatever you want to call it - I kind of think that's brilliant. Bravo.

 

[HUMPH]

Get a float to run it up on to keep it out of the water...

 

[Pack66Dad]

What a coincidence, a few of us were having cocktails on the dock at our marina the other day and watched a huge seal jump up into a "rag boaters" inflatable dinghy a couple slips away. Pretty much tore the crap out of it and sunk it. When it left, the dingy kind of came to the surface filled full of water. After seeing that I'm pretty sure I'll keep my dingy standing up in the davits on my boat.