After looking at a lot of pros and cons about different types of tenders, I want a Boston Whaler. I had one as a kid and I am prepared to deal with the down sides of a heavy, hard side dinghy. It will ferry two of us from anchorages to beach or dinghy dock, and serve as exploration platform in calm conditions. It will hang from davits off the back of a 40ish foot trawler.
Is a 9 foot Whaler too small?
My boat came to me with a BW 9' with a 6hp Evinrude, all on the original davits, suspended over the swimgrid.
I had been using a soft bottom inflatable, Achilles SE11, with a Merc 15. Trying to keep an open mind, I tried both out on the davits and on the water.
The whaler outweighed the Achilles, the Merc outweighed the Evinrude, so about even for total weight on the davits.
The Whaler has such low freeboard, it was not capable of going for groceries with two on board, as everything would get in the way, wet, blown away, you get the picture. The Achilles with high freeboard had none of those issues.
To get more speed, I tried the 15 Merc on the whaler. Scary!
I sold the whaler and the Evinrude.
I eventually moved up to a RIB, first a Caribe 10 with a Yamaha 20, tiller steered. That was a good combination, not too long for my transom, but heavier, so I had to spend a little on strengthening the attachment of the davits to the Boat.
My next move up was to my present Caribe 12DL, centre console with a 40 Honda. This one solves all dinghy problems and still is happy on the davits.