Quote:
Originally Posted by Eleebana
I've done anchors and made my choice, now I have to solve the dinghy question. What I'd like to know is, How many of you leave your dinghy on the davits when crossing oceans? The general opinion seems to be that it's a no no, but in practice it seems to happen quite a bit. My new 42' boat being built will have an arch to carry the solar panels and includes davits. Because it has an extended sugar scoop a RIB on davits will be half over the sugar scoop and only half over the water, meaning it would take an absolute breaking monster to swamp it.
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Where will you be doing your passages Greg, it makes a lot of difference and you will get very limited feedback on the less milk-run stuff. Kiwi Roa uses a aluminium [Fyran]
tender which lashes on the foredeck, you can see it in several photos on Peter's website [
www.petersmith.net.nz]. No davits but a
halyard and the
anchor windlass makes it a 60 second job to deploy and retrieve. Aluminium tenders are lighter, rowable (properly), more efficient to motor, give better internal volume for their size, resistant to scratching/cutting on docks and rocks/reefs and 100% UV resistant.
We don't like davits for deep sea
work, you can and may lose the dinghy and do whatever damage to the stern. Kiwi Roa's a 25 tonne 15 m boat with a high freeboard, and I've seen sufficient seas in the southern ocean that would definitely put a hung dinghy at risk. That's not worrying about the extra windage, pain in the a*** with regard to the
windvane, etc.
Even on the foredeck it's not safe, ex South
Georgia Is to Falklands had a freak wave bomb the foredeck, caught the dinghy, bent and split open the plate, and bent staunchions.
Others will be thinking this is crying wolf if you're not headed across the Southern Ocean, or Southern Atlantic. But even in more popular waters closer to home - Peter delivered a
Lagoon ~50' cat from NZ to
Tonga, had a roughish trip. Apart from nearly sinking the damn boat which practically broke up around them, they
lost the davit'ed RIB just like all the horror stories might predict.
If you can get the foredeck arrangement to
work, I would look at it for
passage making, but keep and use the davits for shorter more predictable trips.