I've towed, but whether I'm willing to tow or not depends on the situation. Same with determining what other assistance I can reasonably offer. I'll always be willing to at least keep an eye on the situation until someone better equipped to deal with it arrives. If someone is out of
fuel, for example, I don't have a way to do anything about that. So they only thing I could do is either tow them or wait for someone to show up with fuel.
The last time I towed a
boat in, it was later in the season, 6 PM on a Sunday (so not a lot of daylight left and not a ton of boats still out) and it was only a short back-track on our way home to pick up the disabled boat. Their home marina was a 1/4 mile from mine, so no big deal there. I didn't hear a response from TowboatUS (only local towing service) to the
VHF call, so they probably weren't out on the boat. Which means they'd have to call, wait for the guy to get to the tow boat, then get out there. By which point it would probably be dark. 2 of us offered to tow (I was the second offer), but I was closer, so I decided to take him, figuring it was better if it was all taken care of before dark. In the end, I tied up in my slip just as the sun was setting.
In this case, it was a 25 foot
express cruiser, so I bridled them behind me with a couple of long
dock lines, made a gentle 5 kt tow for the 2 miles back to the river (to keep within the small boat's
hull speed), then brought him alongside once in the river. They had a slip and a
trailer, so I put them on the face
dock for the
ramp so they could take it home for
repairs (and I'm not sure I could have gotten them into a slip readily anyway).