Quote:
Originally Posted by flightlead404
I am curious about this, it having been on my mind recently.
What would you recommend? I was thinking of tying the RIB about midships, with a line forward and one aft to the deck cleats.
But how to tie to the RIB and probably more importantly, how to set it up to be able to disconnect quickly.
And what about technique? Going on the the face dock or T head would probably be ok with the RIB on the outside, but how about trying to guide into a slip? Would the best option be to come alongside the open end of the slip and then have a couple handy folks warp it in?
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If you’re
steering with the dinghy while moving, your outboard should be as far astern as possible to give you maximum
steering ability. Ideally your prop is further astern than everything else. If your outboard is even with or astern of the larger object then you can steer reasonably well. This is how I move salvaged
logs with a skiff (though usually with a 30 hp in that case) and it’s possible to maneuver pretty massive objects easily enough under half-decent conditions. Or even quite indecent conditions.
Or you can lash the outboard tiller and use the sailboat
rudder obviously. I’d still aim to have the outboard on the stern quarter to give yourself options and better steerage.
In tight situations it’s going to be a lot easier with two people because one person can be on each
boat and one can do some fending off with a pole and jump out and pull on lines, etc. while one person runs the OB duties.
Re the question of attaching the RIB - just loop the bow line through the rail/whatever of the larger
boat and back on to the RIB and tie a simple slipknot- or various other possibilities. Once you have forward pressure from the outboard the RIB will suck up against the main boat
hull and stay put. As soon as you throttle back significantly or shift to neutral, the dinghy will want to float free again, giving you the chance to easily detach. Because your RIB is soft you can use it like a boom boat and zip around to apply some braking and push the bow or stern of the main boat into place if needed.
I haven’t had to do lot of fancy manoeuvres in crowded
marinas with this method. Partly because we don’t have really convoluted
marinas here and we don’t have slips at the ones we do have. For us
docking always involved moving very slowly, and gliding in for a gentle landing while one person hops out with lines, fends off, communicates with people on the dock/other boats, whatever. But the same basic MO would apply wherever.
Go slow.
We haven’t felt stressed moving boats this way. If anything it’s been less stressful than running the inboard at times. Quieter, slower, both an OB and a
rudder to steer with, and the option to detach and push/pull from any direction. But things are pretty low key at the dock here. We know everyone and aren’t likely to have random naysayers yelling at us.
It would be more difficult singlehanded but still completely possible IME. Just go in slow. Maybe
anchor the main boat and go
scope the situation ahead of time. Lots of different ways to skin the cat, and lots of possible twists, which can’t really all be covered by writing a book length post on the subject to cover all possible circumstances. The main point, re the thread title question, is that it’s easy enough to move and dock a larger boat with the OB, in my experience.
Edit- As for all the other possible what if‘s and situations you’re going to get into if you have no inboard
engine at all, that hasn’t been the point of my posts because it didn’t seem to be the question. Obviously generally speaking an inboard is gonna
work better. An outboard is more vulnerable and not going to do so well mounted on most sailboats in any significant waves. A bunch of the smaller sailboats here only have outboards on them, but in general they are sort of jerry-rigged and are more limited in rough
weather obviously.