About BuyDinghy

We're Gabriel and Kristy, the couple behind BuyDinghy and YouSail.

Our dream is simple: buy a sailing yacht, move aboard and see where the wind takes us. Australia first. Then the Pacific. Maybe much further.

We're not there yet. We're still learning, taking courses, spending time on boats and asking a lot of questions.

The Question That Started BuyDinghy

Plan a life aboard and the dinghy stops looking like an accessory. How many people must it carry? Can the davits lift it when the outboard, fuel and safety gear are aboard? Will its tubes survive tropical sun? Can you find parts and service in Australia? What does the local sailing club actually race?

The answers were scattered across manufacturer brochures, distributor sites, dealer listings, class associations, club documents, forums and owner groups. We wanted one place that brought the Australian market together. We couldn't find it, so we built it.

That's BuyDinghy: the dinghy and tender guide we needed ourselves, built for people making a real purchase rather than casually browsing boat pictures.

What BuyDinghy Covers

The database currently covers 580 dinghy, tender, RIB, tinny and sailing dinghy models from 41 brands sold, distributed or regularly encountered in Australia.

The market is routinely treated as one category when it is at least seven. A buyer looking for a 2.5 m tender for a 34 ft sailing yacht is shopping in a completely different market from a yacht club buying a rescue RIB or a fisher looking for a 4 m open tinny. Generic advice serves none of them particularly well.

What We Know—and What We Don't

We're not going to pretend we have owned or sea-trialled every dinghy in Australia. We haven't. We're learning as we go and sharing what we find.

What Gabriel is good at is finding scattered information, checking where it came from and organising it so a buyer can use it. Product facts come from manufacturers, Australian distributors and dealers. Local fleet signals come from current club programmes, sailing instructions, results and class organisations. Editorial recommendations remain judgements, not laboratory tests.

Where the data comes from

Specifications are compiled from manufacturer product material and Australian distributor and dealer listings. Where a manufacturer does not publish a figure, we show a dash. We do not estimate a specification and present it as one.

Where Australian availability is unclear — GALA and Walker Bay are the clearest current examples — we say so prominently on the brand page rather than implying you can walk into a dealer and buy one.

How we score

Every model is scored against the job it is actually being bought to do, using three separate weighting systems for yacht tender, fishing and club use. Scores are editorial judgements built from published specifications and market positioning. They are not laboratory results and they do not replace a sea trial.

The full weightings and the length-fit curves are published on the ratings methodology page. If you cannot see how a number was produced, it should not persuade you.

What we will not do

• Publish a price we cannot verify.
• Present an international model as locally stocked without saying so.
• Give an entire manufacturer one score across products that serve different buyers.
• Recommend a sailing dinghy without asking what the local club actually sails.

Part of the YouSail Network

BuyDinghy sits alongside the rest of our Australian sailing projects. For sailing schools, clubs, courses, charters, marinas and the wider story of our life afloat, visit YouSail.com.au.

See you on the water.

Gabriel and Kristy