Where do you carry your dinghy??
- Thread starter NYSail
- Start date
it takes me less than 2 minutes to deflate my dingy and less than 10 minutes to pump up with a foot pump. both such a small task. leaves me a clear deck, which i want for both sailing and safety. seamanship=preparedness. i prefer being ready for anything and that is what i teach.
"boy scout motto: be prepared, which means your always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty" taught to me such a long time ago.
flying spinnakers, stay sails, doing headsail changes, riding on the bow cannot be safely done with a dingy on the deck. deploying a anchor in under 60 seconds, a sailboats emergency brake will be undoable.
well this is what i teach. as a highly trained sailor, this is how i command a vessel.
just my $0.02, take it for what you all paid for it. :+
"boy scout motto: be prepared, which means your always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty" taught to me such a long time ago.
flying spinnakers, stay sails, doing headsail changes, riding on the bow cannot be safely done with a dingy on the deck. deploying a anchor in under 60 seconds, a sailboats emergency brake will be undoable.
well this is what i teach. as a highly trained sailor, this is how i command a vessel.
just my $0.02, take it for what you all paid for it. :+
@Brian D Respectfully, you might not be able to do so safely -- if conditions are bad enough for you to think about jettisoning the dink.
Last May I was in the worst conditions in my experience. It was near shore off Miami (aboard a sister boat to mine, 39 ft tri with 28 ft beam) and we were on the fringes of Tropical Storm Alberto. Even though we were within 10 miles of shore on a deep run we had steady ~25 foot seas, measured trough to crest. (I could use the boat's beam as a visual comparison). We had a LOT of motion, and a monohull would have had even more rolling and pitching than we experienced. A few of us were seasick and had to go to the rail, and it was mandatory to keep a firm handhold. We were harnessed in, and I doubt we would have been able to successfully track or recover a MOB in those conditions. Winds were SSE in the 30's gusting to 40's and it would have been a struggle to beat upwind. We ducked in to Lake Worth Inlet -- and it was a relief to get into sheltered water.
Bottom line, avoid storm conditions. The seas were not breaking and we never took green water into the cockpit or over the cabin top, but the motion was severe enough to make it hazardous to leave the cockpit, and IF we'd have had a dinghy in that position it would have been very hazardous to get it lifted overboard.
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Thanks, Larry. Good common sense would tell me, if given those conditions, to ditch the dink long before that happened. Leaving Dana Point (no dink on the boat this trip) I saw what rightly so was a storm to my south. Although conditions were still favorable, I took to setting the boat for worsening conditions. Lucky for me, the conditions never got any worst. But I kept the boat in this state until I arrived at my port.
Interisland and around the bays we carry the dink on the davits. We re-engineered them in Trinidad for this. Offshore, we carry it on the foredeck right side up with the motor on, more or less as a proactive liferaft. If conditions warrant, we could de-inflate it and store it, the motor and the floorboards below (or if storing the boat), to keep it safe. One of the reasons I won't have a RiB; it defeats the whole inflatable/de-inflatable idea.
And we never, ever tow our dink.
And we never, ever tow our dink.
It all depends on the situation. I have a 10' RIB because up here in the PNW we have pebble and barnacle beaches. If I'm crossing the Straight or anticipate wind chop, I'll stow on the foredeck upside down transom lashed tightly to the mast and bowline through a padeye then a cleat with engine on the rail. Since I single hand, and have a 8hp engine, I try and minimize removing the engine and stowing on the rail so I'll tow with engine on only if conditions warrant. I tow with a single painter attached to two eyes on the RIB and try and keep the RIB on the downhill side of the second trailing wave. If I was ever to go to Hawaii, (which I won't) I'd get a dink I could stow below.
Get a de-flatable inflatable instead of a RIB and you can partially deflate it and have many more stowage options. They are also lighter, so if you wanted davits, without the motor you aren't talking about much more than 100# hanging off the stern, about one small person aft.
Coral reefs versus pebble and barnacle beaches. What's your point?
Our Zodiac would take all in stride; that's what it was made for.
I figured that hard plastic would be tougher than soft rubber. I have to admit at 80lbs. the RIB is a bit heavy but still doable with use of the halyard. A smaller engine or engine crane would be easier too but the speed is nice.
The good inflatables use hard rubber on their keels and the bottom of the tubes that is pretty good at resisting tears or scratches. Probably about the time the gouges in a RIB bottom were allowing water intrusion into it, you might need to renew the chafe strips on an inflatable.
By the way, we use a spinnaker halyard and the windlass to bring the dink onboard forward. It wouldn't matter if it was 1000#! It's a lot easier for us old guys.
I get it, davits are expensive, you don't want a poorly designed davit, and there are probably 20 reasons a smart guy could come up with to justify why they are not necessary on a boat. But then you have to come up with all the ways that yanking one onto the foredeck, securing it, and sailing with it; is OK. Or tow it. Seen below is a 200# of RIB, it can be launched or recovered by one person in less than 1 minute (with motor attached) thanks to position and block and tackle. Sometimes I swim with it hanging, sometimes I drop it in. One of the best features of a cruising boat - dink ready to go for whatever comes along. For coastal cruising it is an acceptable life raft.
^^This. I would never have a dinghy that was not ready to go. I find too many excuses not to use it. On my cat, my 12-year old daughter could launch it an go on her own. Yes, she was trained and passed the state test--she started on boats young. In many ways she is was (and remains) safer and more meticulous than me. Kayaks, same thing.
The dink is a rollup inflatable with floor slats. We keep it deflated in a locker inside a Genoa Bag. Since we only use it to go ashore we power it with an 18 lbs Mercury 2 stroke 3.3 HP. The dink stays in the locker until we reach our destination in protected waters and from then on we will tow it until we are ready to exit.
I admit I cannot deploy or recover my also-near 200# rib+outboard in a couple of minutes. If I needed to get underway in a hurry I would have to tow it until arriving to a place where I could hoist the outboard & then the dink back aboard, and secure it. I don’t like the set-up that much, but davits are the only alternative. In terms of cost, I think installation of davits would far exceed the cost of a lost outboard + rib after the insurance paid off on the loss. If you get my drift. I recognize that w/ long-distance cruising, loss of a dink might be a serious set back to cruising happiness. BUT, I often carry a second inflatable stowed below, and sometimes a second outboard, etc.
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IMHO the “disposable dinghy” is not an acceptable solution. You should consider environmental damage by leaving such major “trash” and hazards to other boats from running into your lost dinghy. An engine or fuel tank would also eventually leak oil and gas.
Last summer in Watch Hill Passage we passed within yards of a boat sailing in the opposite direction, which was towing a dinghy with its engine mounted. The dinghy fuel tank had popped overboard in the conditions, which were choppy 3-6 ft waves even though it was near shore, and the tank was being dragged by its fuel hose attached to the engine. As we passed downwind the smell of gasoline was strong, so fuel was leaking. The people in that boat seemed unaware of the situation and we couldn’t raise them on the VHF. The dinghy also appeared at risk of flipping. It seemed careless to me and it made me sad to see because it was easily avoidable with just 5 or 10 minutes of preparation to properly secure the engine on the taffrail and stow the tank in a secure place.
Not a major disaster but it’s not just about co$t. Try to leave a clean wake.
CL, I don’t think expendable (what I said) equates with disposable. If you have to leave anchorage in a hurry and don’t feel your safety margin permits you time (e.g., 20 min) to separately pull the dink and outboard, and towing is likely to produce a high risk of loss at sea, then a third alternative, I suppose, would be to leave it anchored in situ and report to the USCG or Park Rangers if in a marine park, its location. Maybe you’ll get it back some day if you cannot return for it in short time. My rib does have an anchor with about 100’ of nylon rode plus chain. If you have time to climb in to deploy the anchor, then I suppose you could pull off the fuel tank and take that with you. I doubt many folks would think to do that, however, if in some kind of crisis situation. You’d have to have your contingencies in order ahead of time, including crew briefings.
That all said. IF admiral and I were cruising a lot with routine-perhaps daily-need to deploy and recover the dink and engine, I WOULD have davits. But, me boat sits in her slip probably 300 days a year, and when she is out, I’m not always doing something where I need dink and davits. So, it’s all a compromise.
That all said. IF admiral and I were cruising a lot with routine-perhaps daily-need to deploy and recover the dink and engine, I WOULD have davits. But, me boat sits in her slip probably 300 days a year, and when she is out, I’m not always doing something where I need dink and davits. So, it’s all a compromise.
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How I carry our dink here: https://hunter.sailboatowners.com/mods.php?task=article&mid=45&aid=6195&mn=42