Would a RIB with Motor be too Heavy on Davits all the Time?

[lilbabypenguin]

We are purchasing a boat that has a nice, big arch with davits on the back. Current owner has an Bombard typhoon 305 with an 8 HP Nissan 2006 4 cycle engine and an engine lift attached to the side of the boat to life the engine up and down.
I'm not crazy about the idea of lowering and attaching the motor each time we want to use the dingy, so we were thinking to not purchase his dingy/motor/lift and get a RIB that we could keep the motor on all the time.
But is there a downside to that? Would the weight on the back just be too much? The boat is 32' and we aren't overly concerned with being very fast cruisers. Also can I add we have an Aries self steer windvane on the back under the arch, in case that makes a difference.
I apologize if my question has been covered extensively.
Thank you!

[Nicholson58]

We always keep the motor on the rail with a lock. The dinghy is NEVER towed with the engine. If you do not remove the engine you will surely be towing an inverted dinghy with a wet motor; abandoning it. OR you will be dealing with a wildly out of control dinghy & motor on the davits. You simply can't be too lazy to do what is needed to stow your gear. Sorry, brutal but true.

I have found that I can launch the dinghy & drop and attach the motor (15 HP) in just a few minutes. The OB jib-boom and tackle is easy to use. I have even done it under sail by myself in order to take photos. From the dinghy, flick the line from the tackle & release it from the jam cleat; lower the outboard. That simple. You can see the tackle hanging off the stbd quarter.

[DDabs]

I have an arch and I leave the motor on my dinghy. The RIB with it's 5 hp motor weighs maybe 120 lbs., and the arch can easily support that weight. When I am sailing I have the dinghy tightly secured to the vessel to prevent it from swaying.

[JK n Smitty]

IMO that's too much weight hanging over the stern for a 32 footer. It will affect sailing performance too much. So I would only use davits for securing a dinghy at night or very short coastal jumps.

Like has already been said, we put the engine on the rail. Dingy is either towed or put on the bow depending on distance and conditions.

I am also not sure you have davits and a vane on the same boat. I guess that would depend on the actual boat and the set up.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[zboss]

For day to day, when you are not moving the mothership around its fine. We have a 9.9 four stroke and a rib and put the motor on the rail and the rib on the deck when going anywhere out of the ICW.

[Akapeterc]

I have a 3 m long tender with a 15 hp 4stroke Yamaha on the back which I keep on when going around lakes or bays, but always put the motor on transom bracket when going outside for any distance


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Dockhead]

We have an Avon 340 RIB with 25 horsepower Mariner with wheel steering which stays on the dinghy in davits since, obviously, it would be very laborious to disconnect the steering every time to lift the engine.

Our Simpson electric davits are easily the most troublesome piece of equipment on the boat; currently both out of commission and replaced with block and tackle.

This can work ok if the davits and their mountings are strong enough for the total load (not just static, but dynamic load in a seaway), and if the davits are high enough to practically eliminate the risk of the dinghy's getting swamped by a boarding sea. But I think it's really better to take the motor off if you don't have to have wheel steering. The less mass you have back there the better, even if it's all within the rating of the davits.

I am even thinking about converting to tiller steering in order to be able to get the motor off, despite the many joys of wheel steering.

Or getting rid of the troublesome davits and getting an air-floor dinghy which I can roll up out of the way.

[lilbabypenguin]

OK thank you all so much for your help, maybe we will need to keep the motor lift then. We need to decide before our survey time in which the owner will take the lift off and fill in the hole from it. Don't want him to do that and us decide we actually we need it.

[AnchorageGuy]

We carried our dinghy on davits for thousands of miles in almost all kinds of conditions from afternoon squalls with 40 to 50 knot winds up to and including gale conditions off shore. The davits will make a difference in that they will need to be sturdy enough and the installation strong enough to withstand the loads. We left the outboard on the dinghy all the time EXCEPT on offshore passages. In those case we removed it and had a mount to put it on. Did that for a couple of decades. With our current trawler we can't do that and I sure do miss it. A big plus is the ability to get it out of the water at night to keep the bottom clean and most importantly for security. Chuck

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by lilbabypenguin

OK thank you all so much for your help, maybe we will need to keep the motor lift then. We need to decide before our survey time in which the owner will take the lift off and fill in the hole from it. Don't want him to do that and us decide we actually we need it.

Leave the lift. Its useful to hoist all sorts of stuff on board. Its worth it just to load batteries.

[AnchorageGuy]

We have a manual outboard lift and it gets used for a lot more. While cruising it gets used to haul fuel and water jugs from the dinghy to the deck. As Nicholson58 said, it came in very handy when we hauled the new battery banks onboard from a mooring. Many potential uses if your away from the dock for any length of time. Chuck

[lilbabypenguin]

Great, thank you all for the advice. We are getting him to keep the motor lift on the boat, and are purchasing the dinghy and going to look for our own engine for it. I think it's a good plan, and I appreciate your input in helping me figure this out!
We are so excited to get our first boat, it's not in stone yet, but offer is accepted and survey is happening next week. So provided all goes well we will actually own a sailboat within the next few weeks. I am just giddy over it. Thank you all!

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We have an Avon 340 RIB with 25 horsepower Mariner with wheel steering which stays on the dinghy in davits since, obviously, it would be very laborious to disconnect the steering every time to lift the engine.

Our Simpson electric davits are easily the most troublesome piece of equipment on the boat; currently both out of commission and replaced with block and tackle.

This can work ok if the davits and their mountings are strong enough for the total load (not just static, but dynamic load in a seaway), and if the davits are high enough to practically eliminate the risk of the dinghy's getting swamped by a boarding sea. But I think it's really better to take the motor off if you don't have to have wheel steering. The less mass you have back there the better, even if it's all within the rating of the davits.

I am even thinking about converting to tiller steering in order to be able to get the motor off, despite the many joys of wheel steering.

Or getting rid of the troublesome davits and getting an air-floor dinghy which I can roll up out of the way.

Funny that I have 175 kg Simpson electrics. No issues in 8 years , very simple motor gearbox

Dave


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Funny that I have 175 kg Simpson electrics. No issues in 8 years , very simple motor gearbox

Dave

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Exactly the same as mine. Where can you get parts???

[Hudson Force]

Much depends upon where you are and the weather. We keep our outboard on the dinghy at davits when in protected waters, but we take it off when offshore or sloppy conditions in open inland areas like Albemarle or Pamlico Sounds.



As a related thought, we raise our dinghy on our davits every three days at a minimum in order to keep the bottom growth off the dinghy.