There is no substitute for use in discovering those differences. Plus how you use a tender, is unique to anyone else's(our use certainly is).

I think Joel Whites brilliance in designing his Nutshell takes use to appreciate.

A boats dinghy is first a step onto your boat or dock. Usually a stable midship thwart or seat and (if you're lucky), one step up to deck. A lot of hard dinghy's don't do that very well(inflatables are good at this). Throw in a tight dinghy dock - and you have to step off through the bow - many hard dinghy's are a problem. White must have had these uses in mind when he designed his tender. It has a lot of bottom that stabilizes it even if you step on the gunwales(in fact I can get myself aboard the empty Nutshell from the water without swamping).

.

But he was able to mold that box into a small boat that goes through the water leaving little wake, even with a moderate load.

When you cut off the bow of a boat and create a 'pram', the result is often not pretty. Because White carried the cutwater of the bow well upward from the waterline he pulled the pram off without bastardizing his work. And that also helps the little boat slide through the water with minimum fuss even with a moderate load. In effect, White put the load carrying of a 10.5 to 11' Vee bowed dinghy into 9.5 feet overall.

[/url]