A Hard Dink is Good to Find

Okay, sorry about the title. I had a few other choices, like “Trinka Dink” or “Dinkin’ Around”, but this one was just too good to pass up.

The old Zodiac

This past spring, when boat preparations began in earnest, Rick decided that we needed a new dinghy. The old inflatable Zodiac that we’d been using was almost fifteen years old, and was getting really beat. Plus, Rick was always frustrated by the wet ride, and the slowness of the outboard. He thought we should get a hard-bottomed inflatable and began searching the internet for a good used one. What he found instead was an adorably aesthetic eight foot sailing dinghy – a Trinka – and thus the comedy of the three dinghies was begun.

In the sailing world, you must have a dinghy to get to and from your boat if it is on a mooring or at anchor. When you’re cruising as we do, your boat is akin to your house, while your dink – sailor slang for dinghy - acts as your car. The larger boat becomes a floating summer cottage, and as cool as that is, sailing for fun doesn’t really happen that much. Imagine anchoring your large sailboat for a long stay, say at Block Island, and having a tiny sailboat to play with in the afternoons, veering in and out of the other large sailboats stuck on their own anchors. When Rick came across that Trinka on EBay, this fantasy was ignited with a vengeance.

Trinkas are fiberglass hulled dinghies (“hard dinks” – I kid you not, that’s what they’re called), and have an optional mast/boom/sail kit with a little centerboard and rudder. They have a great reputation for good rowing, good tracking while towing behind, and as good little sailors. They’re also quite beautiful, with a lovely shape and curved sheer. Rick was gaga. I was more dubious. They have a further reputation for being quite tippy, and I already have a hard time getting into the inflatable from the relative height of the Valkyrie. Plus, the eight-foot version seemed awfully small. Rick, disappointed but realistic, shelved his sailing dinghy idea in favor of a brand new Achilles inflatable with a hard bottom and a new 6 horsepower outboard to speed it along. We borrowed an SUV from dear friends Paul and Kara, and made a special trip up to Connecticut to bring the two purchases home.

Since then, we have gone back and forth about dinghies, outboards and the whole bloody mess. After all the time and expense of buying a fancy new dinghy and motor, we put the outboard on the stern rail of Valkyrie and realized, to our horror, that the thing dangerously wobbled the rail.  In a storm, we could lose the whole kit and caboodle. Doh! A lighter outboard would be frustratingly underpowered with the new dinghy, especially in the Caribbean where the winds are strong and steady. Now what do we do? 

Meanwhile, the dream of a sailing dinghy never really died. Rick had been trying to figure out how he could rig the new inflatable for sailing, even came up with numerous plans, but finally gave up on that madness. Enter the "Mighty Jack."

The Mighty Jack

Two weeks before we were scheduled to leave, Rick spied an old Trinka at the boat yard. It had been there for all the years we've had our boat at Young's, right under our noses! Even though the thing was in bad shape, he recognized that a hard dink would solve our weighty outboard problem; our original Honda would be perfect for it! He tried to buy Jack from its owner who had neglected it for at least six years and probably longer. Thankfully, that deal fell through. A great deal of time and money would've been needed to get that dinghy ready for our get-away.  But even so, Rick spent a restless night mourning the loss of his fantasy.

Yeah... maybe not so Mighty

By now, I’ve come around to the idea of a hard dinghy. I have never really learned to sail properly, and a little sailing vessel and time on our hands might finally allow me to learn. Maybe I could use the swim ladder on Valkyrie to get in and out of it more comfortably? A ten-footer is a pretty good size, and we could avoid the compromise of a slightly more weighty, but still underpowered outboard. I wasn’t crazy about that sad wreck of a Trinka, but still… I decide to do my own Craigslist search.

Rick awakes to an elbow in the ribs. “Rick! Wake up! You’ve gotta see this!”

The Yalma Kan

I have managed to find a gorgeous green (GREEN!) Trinka, ten feet, made in 1992 but beautifully restored, for sale at an unbelievably reasonable price! AND, it doesn’t have a trailer, but it’s located at an eastern shore marina, so we can take Valkyrie down there and just tow it away! Rick has to get over his grogginess, as well as to retrieve his dream from where he had buried it the night before, but when he sees the pictures of this little boat he is almost as in love as I am. He calls up the seller, Bill, who is a retired Scottish doctor, and after a few questions and answers are exchanged, Rick buys it on the spot!

Now what? We’ve got three dinghies and two outboards! Well, three outboards really, but that’s another long story. Rick took the new inflatable and the heavy outboard down to Annapolis where his brother Jim will try and sell them. 

The Mighty Achilles atop Rick's Mighty Whizzer

When we left the dock for good last week, we didn’t immediately go north as one might expect. We headed south instead, to pick up our beautiful new (to us) Trinka. Kind of ballsy to take off without a dinghy, having bought a hard dink sight unseen over the phone, but people probably think we’re nuts anyway and this just proves it!

When Trinkas are made, the boat makers carve a name of your choosing on the wood inside of the stern. Ours very clearly says “Yalma Kan”, but this dinghy has had so many owners that no one knows where that name came from or what it means. My son Dewey is a sort of amateur linguist among his other talents, so I set him to work researching the name. There seem to be only two possibilities. One is the “Yalmakan” resort hotel in Acapulco (probably not…), and the other is from a Native American tribe found in Oregon. They spoke in the Klamath language, now almost completely dead with the last fully fluent speaker passing away years ago, but you can find a Klamath dictionary online. The word “Yalma” in Klamath means “wind” or “of the west wind”. That sounds promising. But “Kan” means bladder, of all things. Dewey says that “kan” is specifically associated with urine. Hmmmmm…  “Bladder of the West Wind”?  Not very poetic.  Or maybe “Pissing in the Wind”? I’m choosing to call it “Catcher of the West Wind” or just “Wind Catcher”.  And when we’re angry at it we’ll probably just call it the “Pisser”!

Two days after our departure, we arrived in Oxford, MD, and Bill meets us at the dock with the Yalma Kan ready and waiting. Luckily for us, the little Trinka is even more exquisite than pictured on Craigslist, and there is no question that we want her. There were a few snags having to do with paperwork, but by the end of the second day in Oxford, the Yalma Kan is ours.

Bill and Rick trying to get the hull ID number

What's up with the pink hats?

One would think that the whole dinghy question would finally be resolved with this Trinka purchase. But no, we’re still revisiting the question even now. Yalma is lovely to look at off the stern of our boat, both when we’re traveling, and also when we are anchored. On the other hand, she’s a very high-maintenance fussy lady, and requires much more attention than our old inflatable. In some ways, she’s a real pain in the buttocks. At this point, none of our other dinghies or outboards have yet sold (poor us - we are very aware that this is a first world problem), so if we get sick of the constant worry of a hard dink, we might be able to switch her out for one of the inflatables on our way through Baltimore this coming October. In the meantime, I’m still totally enamored of her. Can’t wait to go sailing!

Yalma and Becky, BFFs!