The Dinghy ate my baby...

Ah, the great dinghy debate, hard vs soft.  We currently own a great Zodiac 280 with an Evinrude 9hp outboard for Monkey's Orphan.  This was a good choice at the time as we had room to place it on deck.  Deflated we stored it just behind the main mast, inflated it fit nicely on the foredeck.  The motor was brought aboard easily using the mizzen boom as the hoist to a bracket on the stern rail.  The Exploration 45 provided a little more challenging, as the 270 degree view from the navstation would be obstructed with a dinghy on deck.  So again we debated the pros and cons of a ridged dinghy vs an inflatable.  Without going through the whole argument again, two things tilted us in favor of a hybrid ridged inflatable.

1. The kids are having a great time sailing their Opti, so ideally we'd like a sail-able dinghy.  
2. We have room under the arch for hoisting and storing a hard dinghy.  

The product we finally settled on is the Walker Bay 10.  We'll probably use the performance sail kit.  This looks to be the best of all worlds, for us.  Sailing, inflatable and able to handle a Lehr 5.0hp propane motor.  We decided on the Lehr engines because of the fuel,  After looking at the various electric options and going with conventional gas, I went with the propane powered Lehr.  While the electric options are getting much better, a couple of things still bother me. The battery capacity/run time is still pretty light, I don't want to get caught in a big wind/waves with a flat battery.  Charging is also an issue without a generator on board.  We might have enough solar and wind to charge but would probably have to run the main engine to charge which doesn't make economical sense.  The other thing that's always bothered me is having gasoline aboard, 'nuff said.  I talked to the engineers at Lehr and they have blessed the Arctic conditions we'll be in.  Propane is plentiful in most ports and the Exploration 45 has a great place to store it, in the aft outside lockers, without being able to leak into the main cabins.  Propane is also a lot more environmentally friendly.

Here's a video of how the Lehr outboard works.

Lehr Video