How Do You Carry Your Dink on Passages- Catamarans

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by Svan

What annoying tradeoffs dinghies are. The portabote is tippy like a canoe. Inflatables can pop. Rigids are always that shape.

To me, the Portabote "felt" tippy like a canoe, because the bottom flexed so much. But in reality, I never felt like we were going to roll it (like a canoe or kayak). Portabote is an acquired taste. It's lighter than anything out there, and planes very easily with a small motor. But I've also seen people take them out for a test run, and quickly come back to shore because they felt it was too unstable. It's movement on the water is very different. IMO

[Barra]

Originally Posted by Palarran

In the same storm I had two near incident's. Day 1 at night in 50ish knot winds and rain we must have fallen off the course a little and were hit by a big growler. It came over the port side from about 40 degrees of my boat, threw me across the cockpit, hit the dingy, and bent the fittings. Two days later we were running in 40 knots apparent with massive swells coming in at 120 degrees. My mate and I looked out behind us and said "Well, that one is coming on board. And it did, filled the cockpit with 6 to 8 inches of water but spared the dingy.

The dingy is a concern and I've observed a lot of pretty screwed up storage systems on cats. But in the overall spectrum of worries about long distance passages it's pretty far down on my list. Standing rigging, rudders, fire, flood. I'd spend 5 times more effort worrying about these then my dingy.

Yes mate - there are 2 kinds of sailors out there - those that have taken some green water growlers over their boats and those that havnt.

99.9% of the time your boat survives it but the skipper always walks away with a new found respect for the oceans raw power.

[mikereed100]

Originally Posted by Saleen411

So far it appears that there is little concern for getting pooped.

In serious conditions, or even survival conditions the conventional wisdom for a cat is to run, possibly with a drogue, IF you have the sea room. Not a universal opinion as some cat owners carry sea anchors.

So considering you are open ocean in serious conditions, isn't a dink up on davits, esp uncovered and with the motor attached, a serious safety concern?

We once rode out a bit of a blow on a Jordan Series Drogue with the dinghy in davits. Wind was gusting into the low 50's and seas were about 6-7m (others on the boat thought they were bigger). Not survival conditions, but I did have some concern about the dink so I spent a lot of time watching it. The sterns always rose to the seas and the dinghy was never touched, even by broken waves.

We just raise it as high as we can get it, remove the plugs and add some straps.

[admiralslater]

Originally Posted by smj

Interesting, so I wonder if he owned one of the 3 original Mantas built by Tek in Toronto or one of the Florida built Mantas.

I am not sure but I think so , the moulds
where originally built by a guy in our club

[AlanT]

We crossed the Atlantic twice. On the first crossing we lashed the dinghy (Caribe 310) upside down on the foredeck, where it was a pain to work around with the staysail and setting the Assymetric. We had a series of storms on this voyage and several vessels were lost, including Flying Colors quite near us. A Swan was dismasted in another storm that we were involved in. (this was 2007). I watched our stern closely in the worst of the weather and nothing, not any wave, nor any white water got anywhere close to the stern arch, not even on the aft deck above the sugar scoop.

So on our return (E to W) we left the dinghy in the arch per the pictures. We lashed it well, removed the outboard and checked the cross lines every day to ensure all was well. On that voyage we wore out two genoa sheets, our genoa and our mainsail, all from chafe from running wing and wing most of the way across (as you can see in one pic) however the dinghy sustained no damage and never came close to getting swamped. I did have a plan for that, involving a very sharp knife, but it was the least of our concerns on our crossing

[Saleen411]

Originally Posted by mikereed100

We once rode out a bit of a blow on a Jordan Series Drogue with the dinghy in davits. Wind was gusting into the low 50's and seas were about 6-7m (others on the boat thought they were bigger). Not survival conditions, but I did have some concern about the dink so I spent a lot of time watching it. The sterns always rose to the seas and the dinghy was never touched, even by broken waves.

We just raise it as high as we can get it, remove the plugs and add some straps.

That's really good to know. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[RELENTLESS 1]

Regarding the Porta-bote - from personal experience - we were in Catalina doing a ASA 105 checkout. Overnight a low pressure system (rare but it was spring) came through and the mooring we were on was about 50 yards from shore (very deep at the Isthmus). Well with the waves now coming more directly into the mooring area, the bounce back from shore made the wave action quite confused and varying from 2-4'. The 105 Instructor on our boat attempted to step amidships into the porta-bote but waves and slippery bottom slid all his weight to the rear transom corner and with one small swell the boat and instructor were going down - a slow motion nightmare.

An unstable dinghy directly attributed to a bad MOB in a mooring field for crying out loud - the waves were pushing him into, on top of and around the transom and he was fending off for dear life. (I don't believe trying to 'sit' into the dinghy would have been viable either as it is to tippy and the waves to numerous) We threw him the life-sling he put it around his chest and we got him to leeward where we winched/hauled him aboard.

The porta-bote was showing maybe a foot or two of its bow nearly vertical as it was now weighed down by water and motor. I rigged a block off of the end of the boom and winched it up enough to drag it to leeward and then partially onto the boat to remove the motor and flip it to drain the rest of the water.

What a disaster - a flooded motor, a wet and exhausted instructor - who is a good and careful sailor, and a dangerous 'rescue' all before coffee!! And yes saving the Instructor earned us an automatic pass.

[smj]

Originally Posted by RELENTLESS 1

Regarding the Porta-bote - from personal experience - we were in Catalina doing a ASA 105 checkout. Overnight a low pressure system (rare but it was spring) came through and the mooring we were on was about 50 yards from shore (very deep at the Isthmus). Well with the waves now coming more directly into the mooring area, the bounce back from shore made the wave action quite confused and varying from 2-4'. The 105 Instructor on our boat attempted to step amidships into the porta-bote but waves and slippery bottom slid all his weight to the rear transom corner and with one small swell the boat and instructor were going down - a slow motion nightmare.



An unstable dinghy directly attributed to a bad MOB in a mooring field for crying out loud - the waves were pushing him into, on top of and around the transom and he was fending off for dear life. (I don't believe trying to 'sit' into the dinghy would have been viable either as it is to tippy and the waves to numerous) We threw him the life-sling he put it around his chest and we got him to leeward where we winched/hauled him aboard.



The porta-bote was showing maybe a foot or two of its bow nearly vertical as it was now weighed down by water and motor. I rigged a block off of the end of the boom and winched it up enough to drag it to leeward and then partially onto the boat to remove the motor and flip it to drain the rest of the water.



What a disaster - a flooded motor, a wet and exhausted instructor - who is a good and careful sailor, and a dangerous 'rescue' all before coffee!! And yes saving the Instructor earned us an automatic pass.

Why was anyone trying to enter a dinghy in 2-4’ choppy confused seas? Whether it be a Porta Bote or an inflatable that was probably a bad decision.
Maybe don’t blame the unstable dinghy, maybe blame the unstable instructor?

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by smj

Why was anyone trying to enter a dinghy in 2-4’ choppy confused seas? Whether it be a Porta Bote or an inflatable that was probably a bad decision.
Maybe don’t blame the unstable dinghy, maybe blame the unstable instructor?

we have boarded in 2-4' choppy seas into our 3.6m RIB off the back of our cat numerous times. not easy staying dry but 'bad decision' : certainly not.

this is a good illustration of the problems with a 'toy' versus life with a real dinghy. it is not always a good idea to pick a dink just because it is easy to stow...you need to be able to use it as well

cheers,

[Sojourner]

I'm staying out of this because we're a mono, but has anyone considered calculating or approximating the force needed to damage your particular davits (in our case, I mean rip them out leaving holes in the glass and a flooding risk) and using lines that are just below that breaking point to secure the dink? If you get so pooped that your going to suffer structural damage, they pop and you lose the dink but suffer not more damage. You can still have the long painter idea as backup with a stronger line maybe led back to a spare winch in the cockpit so you can cut that as well from there? This way maybe you don't need to make a tough call: should I cut the dinghy off as a precaution?

In our case, we have a solid delos-style all aluminum rib-shaped dink. Haven't been out of the med yet, but going across the gulf of lyon in october we were hammered by 3-4m beam seas breaking across deck occasionally for a while. The dink is lashed six ways to sunday upside down on the foredeck, ratcheted tight until it was a part of the boat, and it didn't move an inch. That's the only way I'll carry it on anything but a day sail. Doesn't look like an option on cats tho....

[smj]

Originally Posted by chrisr

we have boarded in 2-4' choppy seas into our 3.6m RIB off the back of our cat numerous times. not easy staying dry but 'bad decision' : certainly not.



this is a good illustration of the problems with a 'toy' versus life with a real dinghy. it is not always a good idea to pick a dink just because it is easy to stow...you need to be able to use it as well



cheers,

Yet some countries use this “toy” dinghy as rescue boats.

[capn_billl]

The forward cockpit on my boat has an impressive drain. Lots of buoyancy in front of it. Can be completely filled with water no issues, drains in seconds. Watertight door with compression latches.

Not for everyone, but very nice place to hangout at anchor.

For island hopping in Caribbean, (not during hurricane season), I'm sure its perfectly fine.

[Barra]

By drains in seconds i think the test used for the leopards design was 45 seconds to drain. Thats plenty of time for repeated waves to pile in and a vicious cycle of tonnes of weight forward suddenly compromising stability.

Yes fine for the Caribbean but to most that's not really offshore. I wouldn't take one into the southern ocean outside of a known weather window though.

Originally Posted by capn_billl

The forward cockpit on my boat has an impressive drain. Lots of buoyancy in front of it. Can be completely filled with water no issues, drains in seconds. Watertight door with compression latches.

Not for everyone, but very nice place to hangout at anchor.

For island hopping in Caribbean, (not during hurricane season), I'm sure its perfectly fine.

[capn_billl]

On my boat, I have a 2 sq ft drain for a 6 ft cockpit. Plugging the drain, with a large plastic sheet and filling it to the brim did not affect buoyancy, or trim. Pulling the sheet drained it well under 30 secs.

I may get hit by a breaking wave, but unlikely one every 30 seconds. And that door will be sealed.

Apparently Lloyd's of London agrees, as they signed off on the design as acceptable risk for extended offshore use.

The boat was made in South Africa, and sailed by a delivery crew across the Atlantic.

[Barra]

Dont sweat it mate I was agreeing with you that it's a great design for island hopping.

Lloyds relied on t he ce classification and there's a bit of a story there which is why the 45 sec to drain requirement. Each to their own on whether that's enough in the wrong conditions.

Pretty sure the leopards are delivered by ship these days unless you have an old one. There was a 44 lost in the Indian ocean awhile back on delivery. Turned up off Madagascar I think about a year latter. Sadly the crew did not survive.