Airfloor Dinghyon Davits

[cyphert]

Greetings and Salutations! I have a 9'6" Achilles high pressure air floor dinghy that I want to lift using the davits on my catamaran. I'll put eyebolts in the transom to use to attach to one davit, but what about the bow? Can I use the towing handle at the bow as a lifting point? Any other elegant solutions?

[Frankly]

We made up a lifting point by wrapping a short length of webbing (with D rings on each end) around the air keel . This is located in the fwd hole where the air fitting is. Had to remove a few stitches where the keel is sewn to the floor. Been using this set up for over 10 years without issues.

Have often wondered if we were to ever get pooped if this wouldn't pull the entire floor out of the boat and thus act like a fuse and dump the water out. Be a mess but at least wouldn't tear the davits and stern rail off the boat. So far no real test on that theory and one of the beauties of the air floor is ease of deck storage.

[cyphert]

Thank! This is indeed an elegant solution and I will give it a try. I also noted today that there is, in addition to the exterior bow lifting ring, an interior bow lifting ring and two smaller exterior d-rings. Also, the ropes attached to d-rings and thru the oar locks seem fairly robust. So, plenty of attachment places.

[Frankly]

Dink is sitting in the water behind the house so I snapped a couple of pics. I added some cleats to the wooden transom. These work for both dock lines and a short lifting bridle. We remove the outboard before lifting the dink with the davits.