Tacking while towing a dinghy

[leecea]

Off-topic from the original question about tacking... but when I put my dinghy on the foredeck it prevents the hatch over the v-berth from being opened.

Since many things that could cause a fire are near the companionway, I worry that anyone below when a fire started would need to exit through the v-berth hatch.

My current dinghy can be deflated and folder to avoid the issue, but do people with RIBs and smallish boats have a similar problem/concern?

[JPA Cate]

@ and4ew:

You can see people have different practices across the people as well as varying for areas.

Yesterday, while sailing in flat, protected waters, our RIB was on a single, short painter the whole time. However when we have towed it coastally, we used to let it ride far back, as Gord May described above, on two painters, led to the chain plates for our running back stays, and if the seas got up too much, we have a 3 cone series drogue ready to go in the dinghy, and deploy that to keep it from surfing into the mother boat. [The surfing problem is non-existant going to windward; and of course the drogue adds to the drag.] We have always stowed them for ocean passages, and we have had the odd mishap towing, but in benign conditions have not come to grief.

Ann

[MicHughV]

Ah well, each to his own. My davits are quite sturdy and also braced with a x-bar, which also form the supports for a solar panel array over the davits.
I have hoisted the dink with the engine on, but didn't like the way, (with additional engine weight), that the dink would sway back and forth regardless of how many lines I tied across the dink.
At the end of the day, while a PITA, the engine gets removed.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by wrwakefield

an appropriately sized (i.e., both bridle lines can pass through the middle with room to spare) aluminum low friction ring would be even better.

A fact to consider is that LFRs are not designed to be used in tension (with two lines going through the center hole) and are not especially strong when so used.


An alternative is to use a pair of LFRs connected together in a dogbone configuration. Some searching should turn up the best construction techniques for doing so.

[Uplander]

Interesting problem. Obviously the sea state is a consideration but the potential wind speed is in my opinion of greater importance. On most coastal travels we stow our inflateable but in sheltered waters we normally tow. That being said we have had a couple of occasions when in "sheltered" waters we proved it was unwise to tow. One time the dinghy flipped in a 40knot gust, the oars dug in and a panel developed a 600mm rip. Made it a tad difficult to leave the boat!

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by Jammer

A fact to consider is that LFRs are not designed to be used in tension (with two lines going through the center hole) and are not especially strong when so used.


An alternative is to use a pair of LFRs connected together in a dogbone configuration. Some searching should turn up the best construction techniques for doing so.

Thanks for the feedback. You are absolutely correct pointing that out, Jammer.

You describe the proper way to use LFRs subjected to any design load. In fact, lengthening the dogbone connection would make a good long tow line that I mentioned in my PS in my post.

In the case of the twin bridle tow rig I described, I am only after a simple way to reduce friction where the two bridles intersect. [The middle of the X.]

When I first started experimenting with this approach [too many years ago] I just looped one poly hollow braid bridle through the other, and it worked fairly well. Then one day I had a spare SS welded ring [of relatively small cross section; 1/4”?] I threaded onto the dinghy bridle, and ran the boat bridle through the same ring. That worked even better- especially when the stiff poly line had a memory and would try and twist when the tension was reduced during some stages of a tow.

Fast forward a few decades and I added the thought of replacing the skinny SS ring I used with a fatter donut; a LFR.

I understand they aren’t designed for this use case, but the loads are so relatively small [unless one decides to stress test everything by winding it up using the high speed underwater winch…] I wouldn’t hesitate to give it a trial run.

Cheers, Bill

[sailorladd]

When I towed my dinghy, I found I was taking on a lot of sea water, and I experimented with shortening the painter.
I actually found that when I lashed the dinghy up close to the stern, and get her bow up and out the water behind the boat's stern, she would not yaw about and collect any wake action or wake slop that I was making while sailing upwind. I would also never have an outboard engine or any oars in the dinghy when towing. I would only tow if I was going short distances, like island hopping in Tonga, or Fiji, or similar. But underway on long passages she was hauled up on the coachroof and lashed down well and upside down....

[EmeraldCoastSailor]

I have found that towing with two lines from each stern cleat back to two short lines, both coming from the bow eyelet on my aluminum dinghy gives me the best performance as well as redundancy. The floating tow lines are about 25' and the double bow eye lines are about 3' (they are loosely lashed to keep them together and they share ss hardware). Having the lines come from the bow of the dinghy makes it a lot easier to connect and disconnect the tow lines. I'll bring dinghy in closer when maneuvering close quarters, usually just relying on one tow line.

I don't have any recommendations for how many wave lengths back makes sense because if there are any sizable waves the dinghy gets put on the foredeck. it is always on the foredeck for any meaningful passage but if I had to tow in rough weather I think my arrangement would work well enough.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by and4ew

I usually tow my dinghy with two lines that run from the forward quarters of the dinghy to the stern quarters of my boat. My Bayfield 29 is a cutter rig so tacking has to be a little more precise to avoid going into irons.
My question is: is it better to have the dinghy close, (less than 10') or further away (20' or more), or somewhere in between? I've been doing my own experimenting but would appreciate suggestions from those more experienced.

Whatever works for you..
However, further away is better... So the tender doesn't run up your stern when it starts surfing.
IMO it's a lot better not to tow a dinghy at sea if you can avoid it.

[jerryf609]

In my previous Catalina 30 I used a product called dinghy tow. I dont remember how much it cost but it worked well. It involved some SS Hardware by which you connected the dinghy to to your stern and towed the dink stern to stern. You could lift the stern a variable amoubt and leave the dinghy bow in the water. Or you could hoist the bow up against the backstay.

Frankly I cant remember if you had to take the motor off but i dont think so.

You can see it at dinghy-tow dot com.

[jerryf609]

On the dinghy tow system when you raised the dinghys stern up the motor was right at the stern rail making it easier to remove the motor.

[Wolfgang.Schau]

Why would you tow a dinghy behind a sailboat? The drag will cost you at least 0.5kn of speed.
Remember, the hull speed of your monohull is different from your dinghy, your sailing speed is too slow to make your dinghy plane, i.e. it acts as a dragging anchor.

Invest in a davits. It had one on my 38' monohull and on my 41' catamaran and never wanted to miss it. The davits may as well serve as a mounting platform for solar panels, which in turn provides a roof over the dinghy to protect from rainwater.

With 2 blocks and an extra rope, I routed the hoisting lines to my power winch to make it easy to hoist my dinghy with the motor attached, total about 200lbs.

These are my 2 cents from 35 years of sailing experience.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by Wolfgang.Schau

Why would you tow a dinghy behind a sailboat?

Well, you might do it because you don't have davits and are only going a relatively short distance in benign conditions.

Invest in a davits. It had one on my 38' monohull and on my 41' catamaran and never wanted to miss it. The davits may as well serve as a mounting platform for solar panels, which in turn provides a roof over the dinghy to protect from rainwater.

Davits are a great option. Nothing wrong with that. Lots of people have them.


I don't have davits on my boat because of cost, windage, and aesthetic considerations. My reasoning is that the dinghy has to be on the foredeck whenever any sort of serious conditions can be anticipated, which is more or less always on Lake Superior. For short little moves between islands or in protected areas I tow the dinghy.

[and4ew]

I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond to my original post and to the various side bars. For my coastal cruising and gunkholing towing is more practical when the weather is good. I can put my 10' dingy on the foredeck of my 29' boat but it's a challenge. Davits are out of the question, of course . What I've learned is that:
- I should modify my current towing config to include a dogbone SS ring thing.
- towing with a longer line will have less impact on tacking
- to look at the dighytow product

Thanks all.

[flightlead404]

When towing a dinghy, make sure there is no single point of failure. I don't like towing on a single line for this reason, also because it allows the dink to swing side to side more.

I built a towing bridle that is 50' of floating, high viz, double braid. That runs from a stern cleat on each side to a steel ring (one SPoF but how likely is a steel ring to fail?). Then from the steel ring two rungs of about 4' of high strength webbing to two stainless caribiners, to the two tow rings on the dink. Works great.

In terms of distance, I put the dink on the back of the 2nd wave behind me.

Tacking is much less of an issue than gybing. I won't gybe downwind with the dink in tow.