As we prepare for the loop, we bought a dinghy. Some people go without, but we really want the ability to explore some of America’s nooks and crannies.

After searching for a used one because our yacht dealer admonished us to “never buy a new dinghy,” we gave up and bought a new one. We purchased a Gala A300D with a Honda 9.9hp motor. It’s a 10 foot aluminum hull RIB and her name is Dot.

Next up is to give her a home. After a fair amount of research and phone calls, we bought a Weaver tip up davit system. We did a LOT of measuring to fill out their order forms and worked with a local expert.

We had the Weaver mounts on the swim platform already, so we only needed the arcs.

The equipment came in a couple of weeks ago, but we didn’t get to it until today.

After four hours of work, a few bad words, a sheared bolt, and then a few more bad words, we made some progress. The front arc is on, the transom mount is mostly on, and the aft mount on the swim deck is moved to the right place. Tomorrow we will replace the sheared bolt and move the forward mount. When the weather cooperates (need it to be a bit cooler for the glue to work right), we will put two stand offs in place and be done!