Tenders and Linguistics - by Barry "I think I'll take the dink into town", was a phrase uttered which got my attention as we lay in a tranquil anchorage. Later that day we shared libations on their trawler with the orator of the statement, a Brit and her husband, the topic got around to yacht tenders. "You mean the dink", she offered. Pardon was my reply. The dink, the dinky, our little rubber boat which brought us to the discussion of yacht tenders. The lifeline of every sailor, the soaker of every ass, your status in the pecking order, your transport to shore, your supply vessel for water, fuel, provisions, your fishing boat and your reef viewing vessel, a towboat, a tugboat, even possibly your liferaft and a thousand other uses vital to all cruisers. All have their favourites and opinions, hard shell, inflatable, rib, fold boats, kayaks, oars, paddles, motors big, bigger and immense: pvc, hypalon, fibreglass, aluminum and yes with dinks as most other things, size does matter. Some are rather spartan and utilitarian and small, others on the verge of indecent. One vessel we saw had a dinghy that was 65 feet long and it had it's own captain and the dinghy had a dinghy. Seasoned sailors learn to cross vast bays and sounds, in extreme weather standing upright facing the elements as a ship's figure-head would, steering with one hand on the motor extension, the other on the bowline (painter for those nautical). Novices can be recognized by the saturation level on the rear of their shorts. Some are named after the mothership e.g. barefoot ... socks, cats meow ... wiskers, some are numbered fl12345, some are anonymous and apparently quite a few have religious history e.g. "get in the g.. d... boat!" and some are named after their makers - zodiac, avon. Even the title for the vessel itself is somewhat varied. Some pronounce dinghy as ding ghee, others ding ee, others refer to their tender as zodiac or avons and the Brits refer to them as dinkys or dinks which to a Canadian brings a titter of laughter each time but now understanding that when I hear, "the dinks a little soft", there is no need to seek out the local urologist but it still does require action from a pump. Our yacht tender/dinghy is a rather rustic (rustic in this instance is the equivalent of calling the coliseum a fixer upper) bombard b1 circa 1982, which is inflated only to human lung pressure (I'm breathing out anyway and too cheap to buy a pump, correction make that frugal) and quite a spectacle in the anchorage when the need to stiffen up is at hand. It's outer skin is shedding like a rattlesnake and I've taken to repairing it with a hot-glue gun. It also serves as a large foot bath or sea aquarium due to the amount of water it takes on and is a little more flexible now that part of the floor fell over-board on a recent passage. One steadfast rule of cruising I read was never tow a dinghy if you are travelling more than 15 miles and I can attest that after approximately 3,000 miles of cruising: Cuc (as in sea cucumber ... boat SeaStar .. mothership thing ... get it?) has only travelled 2800 miles in the water with her faithful side-kick the 6 horsepower Johnson on her rear. She has towed in two distressed boats, been used as a tugboat to ram the bow of the mothership off a reef, become a platform for underwater coral viewing, used as a ferry/towing service for those tenders that have broken down or lost at sea and provisioned us for over a year. Yes, indeed our venerable bombard inflatable has and still is doing us proud. Now when I hear, "I brought the dink home," a plethora of emotions well up inside for the unlimited value these vessels provide. And as I look out the hatch, I understand as I see the Brit step out of their inflatable, her husband with the groceries at his side, yes the dink is home.