Two weeks ago, after we got the dingy engine started and running, fixed the steering we took it out to see how it worked. Water was coming into the dingy between the tubes and the hard bottom. Through investigation we determine the the glue holding the tubes in place is failing. The dingy is 20 years old. The tubes are a PVC material which has a limited life exposed to sunlight. That life is about 10 years. The bottom line is the 20 year old tubes are falling apart….and the worst part is that replacement tubes won’t be here until late April or early May. Island hopping requires a working dingy. We will anchor out each night, but will need a dingy to get ashore….
I take the old tubes in to the Zodiac dealer to see if they are salvageable short term. They are, will cost as much to fix as the replacement tubes and take two to three weeks to get fixed……sole searching time.
What are we doing… We left Virginia in a hurry. Not because everything was “fixed” but major stuff was done, we could work on things during the trip south, and we couldn’t get caught in freezing weather without risking frost damage to the boats systems that had already been replaced. We had been traveling three weeks and spent another three week in Ft. Lauderdale having things fixed and replaced, but we still had a long list of things we needed to do before we can charter this boat. Florida is the best place to get things done. We need to stay and get ready.
