Dinghy Tow Rope Length

[charliehows]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Definitely off.... even for 15 miles. Here's an example. In the Sea of Cortez I had a guest aboard. We were working our way back toward La Paz to get him to an airplane out. The previous night the wind had blown hard but were were in a protected anchorage... still we could tell it was blowing. It was calm in the morning and needed to head to the next anchorage, accross the channel between islands... maybe 20 mile trip. We decided to tow my 8 ft Dyer dow dingy. We did remove the motor and put the oars inside the bulwarks aft on the mother ship. Once we got out in the channel, we had some huge steep waves, probably 16 footers curling on the top at times. It was a broad reach and the mother ship was making way well, although loosing the wind in the sails when the boat was in the trough between waves. The dingy was on about a 20-25 foot leash. As the mothership was pulled to the top of each wave it slowed near to a stop, but the dingy was surfing down the wave face trying to pass the mother ship! Either port side, then starboard side, then the dink would ram into the windvane hard and almost stand up on it's bow! This went on for about an hour, once... the dingy filled completely with water, then as the mother ship careened down the wave face, the painter became bar tight and..... wait for it.... the dink was jerked entirely clear of the water, throwing the water inside it out and off we went again... at that point rough water or not we had to stop the mother ship and wrestle the dingy aboard ... in those conditions... not fun. So yeah... you really want your outboard off the dink.

errrrr...or maybe "never tow a dinghy in open seas" - I'll admit I'm not familiar with the Sea of Cortez but that 'Sea' bit in the name oughta be a clue...

[markpierce]

Got to consider the conditions!

[cdarwincole]

I've had racing sailboats, so I've needed to keep weight and clutter down -- hence, no davits. When cruising, I've towed my dinghies in a variety of conditions with no issues. When I had a smaller boat, I had 7 1/2 foot Dyer Dhow I could put on the foredeck when things looked to be getting rough. As of last year, I have a bigger boat (37') and a launch that's too big and heavy to haul aboard (a Cape Dory 14). And I'm not as spry as I once was. So we shall see how the towing goes. Probably just have to keep a weather eye and maybe experiment a little.

It seems the most efficient way to tow the dinghy is so that it is surfing the wake a wavelength behind. That's great for calmer conditions. If you want to get the bow up and tension the line because of chop, you can have it riding up on the back side of the wake wave. So half again more rope gives you options. Someting approaching twice the length of the big boat waterline (29.83 ft / 9.09m for me) seems good. 55 to 60'.

You want the line to absorb shock, so old fashioned twisted line is best.

We also go adventuring in the launch. So it's nice to have enough line to anchor or tie it at a beach or in shallows.

I use a shorter separate line with a Unimer Drainman bilge pump on it to tie the wherry to the dinghy dock. Works great.

[foggysail]

I have never had good luck towing a dinghy. My first was an 8’ Eli (fiberglass) and my last is an Avon 3.10 no matter how long the tow rope was. The only way I had success was to raise the dinghy bow and pull it as close the our hull as possible.

Years of towing finally got to me. I now have a davit crane on my bow. The dinghy sits in chocks next to the crane, loaded with engine, fuel, seats and things one normally store in their dinghy. It is lifted into and out of the water with the crane.