Towing a RIB

[contrail]

Another benefit to efficient davits is that you can hoist the dinghy every night and avoid most thefts.

[Ocean Girl]

We have a canoe stern, no space to put it( reasonably) :-). Our next boat may have it. We did hoist our last tender a couple feet out of the water midship via spinnaker halyard to avoid theft, haven't attemp it on this new beast. Will try with my climbing tackle, in the process of making the lifting bridle right now.
Cheers
Erika

[keepondancin]

I used the same crane on my PSC 37. Towed a Caribe C9X quite often. I found the engine, Yamaha 15, added to much load on the painter so it was always off when towing more than a couple of miles. Couldn't tell if you are cutter rigged, or is you have a removable inner forestry. I could carry the dinghy deflated on deck, inverted, behind the inner forestay, and with the IFS removed, the dinghy could stay inflated. We purchased it in Venezuela, and stayed in the Caribbean for several more years before returning to the North East USA, so effectively the dinghy went several thousand miles on it's own bottom. Also, no problem with a harness and halyard to lift it at night. Even now I use a halyard and just the bow eye of the dinghy to lift it on deck by myself.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

I did not think I needed to use the d rings on the inflatable part since the dinghy has a nice sturdy pad eye but WM instruction manual implies to use the D rings.

We will only tow in calm protected waters.

Then do what the manual implies...wouldn't the manufacturer know best?

As to your anti-theft ugly work, I'd suggest spending your time and energy on proper locks and security.

[Ocean Girl]

We use acco chain and a hefty pad lock to lock the dinghy up. The motor has two different locks on it. I'm a bit paranoid for some reason, wasn't ever really worried about our last dink getting stolen( shrug).

BandB- you have a very good point about the manufacturer knowing what's best. Normally I'd follow it and that's that. But since it didn't jive with me, thought I'd post a thread to get input from the vast experience here to see if I was way off base.

From what I've gathered, if thieves want your dinghy no amount of locks will prevent them from taking it, but to make the motor harder to resale...that can be a good deterrent. I will candy stripe the motor shaft and call it done.

Keepondavin- We can fit the dink on our foredeck with our staysail rig in place if it is deflated, it came with an awesome case for this. Downside, it takes up the side decks and we do not have roller furling, so a bit of a pain.

We are cruising and after a 3 1/2 week siesta in Key West will be moving on, which means traveling about 30-40 miles a day, 7 days a week. in protected waters of Hawk Channel, then ICW and day jaunts offshore. We don't tow offshore. We also watch weather carefully but ya know how that is!

Thanks for the advice. leaving in the next couple days for Dry Tortugas, so if I don't respond to a question it is because we are out of Internet range for a couple weeks.
Cheers, and thanks again.
Erika

[fjwiley1]

Ann...sure would like to see a Pic of your Dinghy Drogue if possible.....sounds very interesting..😊

Thanks

[jmcdboater]

St Croix has a pretty nice of swim step davits that will handle most smaller dinghy so. We have an 11' Avon with fibreglass seats for four, app 200 lbs (dry) and we pull her vertical on our SeaRay swim step. We have a swivel mount on the 9.9 HP Yamaha so we don't have the worries of lifting the motor off by hand........ Which is really, really good since I'm ha in' more and more trouble carryin' my own weight, let alone a 97 lb outboard! The whole system was easy to install, I would LOVE a crane, we have a hardtop for the dink, but no crane. That would cost a lot!

[Captain Yiannis]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

Sorry, I know there are a plethora of towing threads, but the ones I've found don't really differentiate between RIBs and the soft bottom inflatables.

We just moved up from an inflatable floor to a 10'3" deep V Hypalon RIB with 15 hp Yamaha electric start( yes, I'm spoiled rotten!) :-)
Was wondering about towing. I did not think I needed to use the d rings on the inflatable part since the dinghy has a nice sturdy pad eye but WM instruction manual implies to use the D rings.

We will only tow in calm protected waters.

Here is a pic, I'm in the process of uglyfying the dinghy and motor to hopefully prevent theft.

Thanks

Erika

You all, ..said almost everything , two things more

Never tow a dingy (even in calm weather) if you have the engine installed
and
if you tow... without using the tow rail
(if exists, .. if it doesn't exist you have to invent one)
you will always be at great risk of loss.

AGG Yaght Service Greece

[Scout 30]

A lot of good advice. On our Avon we set up a bridle with our D rings for the main line & run a second safety line off of the bow. The bridle really helps the dinghy track straight. We always use floating line. If you don't you'll eventually end up eating it with your prop.

[Jimmyhenry]

We have one basic rule. Only tow if we have to. Outboard on, never. Davits - never. We stow the dinghy on passages on the fore deck and use the anchor winch to hoist, outboard by gantry near the stern. Overnight we hoist alongside, cuts down on barnacles.
In our early years we lost 2 dinghies through rope or bolt failures. We now avoid any such problems.

[Jon Eisberg]

Perhaps I've missed it, but one thing not yet mentioned that is an important consideration when towing a inflatable tender of this size and weight...

To minimize drag, you really want to find the Sweet Spot relative to your stern waves where it's riding 'downhill', so to speak, akin to surfing down the front of usually the second 'hump' of your wake behind the boat... The most efficient position usually entails keeping the boat on a pretty short leash, the further it drops back, the less distinct your stern waves become, and the more difficult it is to take advantage of this surfing effect. It's amazing how dramatic the difference can be between finding the right spot, and towing the boat 'uphill' on the back side of your stern wave, or in the trough. The proof, of course, is all in the amount of pressure on the towing line, and will vary with the mother ship's speed. And it's yet another reason for not towing with the engine on, all that additional weight on the transom will really spoil any effort to take advantage of your stern wave(s)...

Today's generation of SUV dinghies can be nice when in port, I suppose, but I think a lot of folks out there are becoming slaves to their tenders and large motors, and they can often wind up determining how you cruise from one spot to the next... In my observation, most smaller boats with Cadillac Escalade tenders will motor more, and sail less, as a result of the greater inconvenience of prepping the tender for short trips... Davits can work for some, but on a boat like a PSC 37 with a canoe stern and little buoyancy aft, dangling that sort of weight off your stern would take the boat completely off her lines, and degrade her performance under sail to a depressing degree... The sort of thing that could make Bill Crealock turn over in his grave... :-)

I see plenty of folks out there today who seem to have defeated the point of owning a sailboat, with the choice they've made re their tenders... I doubt this guy did a whole lot of sailing on his trip between NJ and Key West, for instance...

:-)

[a64pilot]

I towed mine until I got davits, and I hated it,
First, heck with folding props etc., try dragging an eight ft waterline dink at 6 kts and see how much that slows you down, it's amazing at how much drag there is as it's hull speed is what 3 kts maybe?
Secondly, I couldn't believe how noisy the thing was being drug behind with the water slapping against it's hull.
After that experience I decide that when and if I got a boat where I couldn't have davits or lash the dink on the foredeck, I'd get one that I could deflate and roll up and stow.
I actually once pulled the thing into the back of the big boat, lifting it's bow well out of the water, probably looked silly, but seemed to work better than towing.

[osirissail]

For those whose boats are insured - you had better carefully check your insurance policy as normally "towing" a dinghy removes the insurance coverage from the dinghy.

[Jon Eisberg]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I towed mine until I got davits, and I hated it,
First, heck with folding props etc., try dragging an eight ft waterline dink at 6 kts and see how much that slows you down, it's amazing at how much drag there is as it's hull speed is what 3 kts maybe?
Secondly, I couldn't believe how noisy the thing was being drug behind with the water slapping against it's hull.
After that experience I decide that when and if I got a boat where I couldn't have davits or lash the dink on the foredeck, I'd get one that I could deflate and roll up and stow.
I actually once pulled the thing into the back of the big boat, lifting it's bow well out of the water, probably looked silly, but seemed to work better than towing.

As always, It Depends...

From that nice pic as your avatar, it appears your tender is definitely more 'appropriately-sized' than the one on this IP 38 I ran a couple of years ago... there's a bit of wide-angle distortion to this shot, but trust me - not much...

:-)




Some folks do seem to get a bit carried away, when it comes to hanging dinghies on davits... :-)

[seamountie]

Just a couple of comments and addendum. If you are towing using a bow eye, make sure it is solid stainless. Quite a few dinghys of all sorts have fancy chrome plated eyes. A friend we were with lost a dingy train when the chrome plating (which was busy coming off) cut through the line. If you have a chromed one, even in good shape, I would put the tow line through a chunk of hose where it goes round the eye.

And a pet peeve of mine. Super long tow lines on dinghy's towed by displacement vessels. This is particularly true in crowded water ways. If you do this you have functionally made your vessel 3x it actual length - from a maneuvering point if view. Your maneuvering and others trying to avoid you.

You do not have to worry about the hull speed of the dinghy (except around 4 knots, which is the hull speed of a 10' waterlined dink). A bit over 4 knots and it will start to plane - which is why you want to use the tow eye as this will tend to lift the bow to encourage a plane.

my wife & I live on our boat and have cruised from Victoria to Rivers Inlet a lot, even through weather we shouldn't ought to have been out in, and the only time we lost the dink was at anchor. Which is a story unto itself.

Richard
aboard S/V Gandalf III
Quait Bay, near Tofino, BC

Gandalf is a 1983 Cooper Banner 37