How do you ride in your dinghy

[Sailing Drummer]

Specifically, if you have an inflatable or RIB without the center console. I've noticed this year that more cruisers are using what I call the St Augustine dinghy technique. And I've seen this all the way up into the Chesapeake. This is where you stand up facing forward instead of sittingwhile holding a line for balance and your partner does the same, to avoid spray. And they rarely look aft.

If this is you, I hope my story will make you rethink your technique. This is what happened to us today.

We were coming out of Georgetown Exuma Lake Victoria. We sit on the tubes of the dinghy. I'm aft to port and Barbara is forward to starboard. I usually face forward and starboard, she faces Port and aft. We're going slow as to not create a wake around the anchored boats - something that is becoming more and more foreign as we see more cruisers show no courtesy to anchored boats.

I hear a loud scream. I have no idea what she said but I turned around to see about 20' of the underside of a hull coming at us fast. Fortunately I reacted quickly enough. I gunned it and turned to starboard. He was slowly turning to port. He missed us by literally inches. His bow wake threw a ton of water into the dinghy and the wake almost turned us over. We were both able to stay in the boat, unharmed. Immediately after that another cruising couple comes blasting by in their dinghy throwing a tremendous wake on our other side. They had to have seen what just happened to us but obviously they were in too much of a hurry! Didn't slow down, stop or ask if we were ok. A woman was standing in a dinghy next to her anchored boat about 30' to starboard and did ask us if we were ok. And the first boat came back to apologize and make sure we were ok. He never saw us until I turned away from under him. He was a local in a fast "take tourists out for some fun" type boat. He apparently came out of the govt dock area and was going around the point to head north.

If we rode in our dinghy the way we see many do, I wouldn't be here to offer this caution! If there are 2 if you in the dinghy, make sure one is always watching aft. If you are alone, be vigilant and keep a sharp lookout.

Larry