Towing a dinghy...

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Mishigas
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Location: Selby Bay, Edgewater Maryland

Towing a dinghy...

Post by Mishigas »

Question for the group, occasionally I will reposition from one anchorage to another and would rather just tow my dink then load her on the davits. I understand that I will need to reduce my speed but how do you rig the dinghy to do this safetly. I have a 10' AB RIB with outboard attached. Please advise, thanks Sandy Kramer MV34 "MISHIGAS"
Tanah-Keeta
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Post by Tanah-Keeta »

On Tanah-keeta, I never tow the dingy.... it is too easy to raise into the davits... I leave the motor on.... In fact, I always haul it out each night before retiring... less chance of it doing a walkabout if something should happen during the night.... plus.. less noise.

I just purchased a 34 MV so I will see if this philosophy will carry over. Since the new davit system on the 34 is based on the design of the 36, I assume things will be the same.

If you do tow the dingy, I would raise the motor and attach a bridle to the D-rings on the bow of the dingy and lead a 1/2 inch painter to the boat. Speed will determione how long the painter should be. Don't forget to pull the dingy in tight before anchoring.
Ron McDaniel
TK III 34108
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ThomKat
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Location: Pickwick Lake, MS (38852)

Towing a dinghy

Post by ThomKat »

Hi Sandy,

Towed a 10' hard dink behind our trawler for several thousand miles. We put it on a 8' V-bridle that was secured on each side about 2' aft of the bow. Towed it on the front side of the 2nd wave back and off to one side using a 7/16" (approx) floating line (polypropelene core with a fabric outer cover) that we found at Home Depot. Floating line stays out of the prop - but you still have to be careful when backing! If you use regular line, put floats on it. As long as you keep your speed down (we ran about 7.5 Kts), you should have no problems. Questions? - give me a call @ 662-423-8013.

Tom Walker
Lying Aqua Yacht Harbor
Pickwick Lake
Tom Walker
ThomKat - MV3475
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No Schedule & Sticking To It
duetto
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Post by duetto »

hi all,

in 30 years we had never towed a dinghy but recently we did just that, albeit not intentionally. we were off atlantic city, nj when we noticed that a davit had failed and the dinghy, 9'6" ab w/15hp motor, had partially self-launched. the conditions off atlantic city were 4-6' close together waves. after we got over the shock and rejected cutting it loose we had to figure out how to tow it into atlantic city and then another 65 miles up barnegat bay. i suggested that i get in the dinghy and rig towing lines, to which the first mate replied "nfw", so we released the stern block and tackle and proceded to tow it with the bow line and bow block and tackle. the motor was down and we towed it at approximately 7 knots into atlantic city. it towed quite well.

once into atlantic city we stopped the boat and i got into the dinghy and rigged two 40' docklines to d-rings as a bridle and raised the motor. we experimented with how far back to tow. 20' worked well, so we upped the speed to our normal 13 knot cruise but needed to drop dinghy back to the full 40' and more would have been better. it rode the stern wave and just hung there.

once anchored for the night we removed the motor and raised dinghy on the surviving davit. i didn't feel comfortable towing the dinghy thru the busy ny harbor.
john & diane cummings
duetto mv34 #23
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