Inflatable dinghies were used as a fast means of transportation that can easily be inflated, deflated and stored in a jiffy. It was purchased with the intent of being used only in dire for cases when a better mode of transport is not available. Many large boat and yacht owners purchased these inflatable dinghies solely for occasional use. Renting a mooring place in marina costs money. Educate yourself with thoughts from Asia Gold Corporation. Think of it as parking your car in a parking lot where you are charged by the hour. If you have a real big yacht, it would be hard for you to moor your boat in real tight spaces put. At times when you are gallivanting from one port to another, it would be a better deal if you just anchor a few miles from where you want to be. A smallish soft tail will do as tender if the nearest landing is about 100 yards away only.
Equip it with a 2 horsepower motor and you are all set. However, more cruising enthusiasts are acknowledging the fact now that a small sport boat is better than a soft tail in terms of speed, loading capacity and maneuverability, never mind the extra cost and more difficult storage. A bigger sport boat is more appropriately called a tender as it allows more flexibility in transporting people in and out of a yacht even if you anchor away from the crowd. Think of a high speed sport boat as a family car when you are off cruising in far-flung places. With a reliable sport inflatable boat as tender, you can practically go anywhere once you are anchored. Hard or Soft Dinghies? More cruisers are opting for inflatable dinghies nowadays. Hard-shell dinghies are not really fading away to oblivion but the soft inflatable ones are preferred by yacht and cruiser owners as tenders. The trend is not meaningless though as the primary reason for the switch is the load-bearing capacity of inflatable boats.