While we were here hemming and hawing about which dinghy we should get, wanting a Portland Pudgy, but not wanting to spend the money on a new one, and wasting time going to see inflatables and Mintos that got sold out from under us, the Universe was busy organizing a big surprise. Low and behold, on July 4, someone named Aaron in Port Townsend listed a white Portland Pudgy on Craigslist for exactly the amount of money I was willing to spend on a used one: way less than 1/2 the price of a new one.  I saw the ad within 2 hours of its listing, got so excited I emailed the guy twice just to be sure he got my message, and the next day I drove up to Port Townsend and put her in the back of my beater truck. I’ve never been so successful at Craigslist scrounging.

She fits in the back of our beater truck like she was made to go home with us!

Honestly, we are pretty stoked that we’ve scored a Pudgy without paying retail price for it.  I hear through the grapevine at the marina that ‘all the cool kids have Pudgies’.  I’ve always wanted to be a ‘cool kid’. Who knew that at the ripening age of mid-50’s I might finally belong to a club that I might even want to belong to? Or that would accept me as a member.  Between being gifted charts for the west coast and finding this deal on the Pudgy, it’s been quite a week. I begin to think we might just be pulling this plan off.

So now that we have ‘Penguin’, some decisions that have been hanging like chads on a ballot can be finalized. We will get the life raft kit for her. The boat came with pieces to make our own sail rig. We’ll give that a go. We’d like to have the Pudgy sail kit, but it’s not really a requirement and we should be able to rig something decent from the pieces that came with the boat. We have wanted a sailing dinghy for a long time. This will be fun!

Penguin, not in her natural habitat.

You’ll notice on our new ‘gear to buy‘ list that I’ve left the RIB and engine on that list. That’s because we will likely go ahead and have a RIB on board, but now we aren’t in any hurry to get it. We understand that there are times when really the RIB is the best choice of tenders,  so we haven’t given up on that. To be clear, Universe, that’s a Hypalon RIB with a folding transom,  about 10’ long. If we can get the Achilles HB300FX that stows in its own bag, that would be great!

We’re looking forward to getting this pudgy little Penguin down to the docks to give her a spin and say howdy to the other Pudgies at the marina.