Almost lost the dinghy

[All U Get]

Hi all,

We’re at anchor in Elizabeth Harbor at Georgetown in the Exuma’s and have our dinghy in the water for traveling purposes. We noticed having difficulty getting to plane and once getting swamped by a wake from another boat. I thought it was an issue with the outboard and took it to the closest beach to haul it out. While doing so I undid the plug that drains the core and had gallons of water drain out. Thinking of all the recent rain I just thought it was seeping in from the fittings in the floor of the dinghy. On the way back to the boat we noticed the nuts from the bow eye laying next to the fuel tank just in time to save the eye from coming all the way out.

After fastening it together I took it back to the beach after grabbing tools and Loctite for a proper fix. Had this pulled out while we were towing or during the night, we would have been ordering a new dinghy and outboard. Hmmmm. After 8 years cruising I can only imagine that the nuts backed off from the jerking when tied to the boat or docks. The little plastic nut covers kept us from seeing this happening. Just lucky we noticed it when we did, aint life great.

 

[dlochner]

Thanks for the notification of another annual maintenance job check the dingy fittings.

Glad you you found the leak and got it fixed. We've been towing with a bridle attached to pad eyes glued to the tubes, this year I'm adding a third connection to the hull so the tow line will be connected in 3 places. Redundancy.

 

[NYSail]

I have a double bridle both tied to the hull pad eye. We never tow with the engine on unless going from dock to mooring which is about 1 mile through harbor going slow and calm protected water. I do check the pad eye from time to time...... will do more often. Thanks for heads up..

Good catch!

Greg

 

[Sumner]

We tow the dinghy everywhere with the Mac and ...

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/macgregor/outside-17.html

... tow it with the main tow line going to the transom. I also always have a secondary slack towline going to the dinghy as a 'just in case' line. I'd hate to look back there and see it not there,

Sumner
=======================================================================
1300 miles to The Bahamas and Back in the Mac...
Endeavour 37 Mods...
MacGregor 26-S Mods...http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/endeavour-main/endeavour-index.html
Mac Trips to Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Canada, Florida, Bahamas

 

[MitchM]

after a friend lost his very expensive hard dingy in the chesapeake, we mused , with some dark and stormies, over a dingy alert system. it would involve rigging a very thin wire between dinghy and mother ship. the wire would be connected to a 12v battery source and an audio alarm . if the dinghy broke loose, the wire would disconnect and an alarm would sound on the mother boat. we never did fulfll this design because it was easier to just go buy a stronger painter.

 

[Rich Stidger]

For the reasons described above, we never tow our dinghy. We now have davits, but prior to having those we always hauled the dinghy up on the fore-deck.
I have too many friends who have lost their dinghy while towing.

 

[DArcy]

Many years ago, crossing Georgian Bay, I came up from below and noticed the dinghy wasn't there. It was a fairly calm day with good visibility and we could just make out a dot on the horizon. We headed back and picked up the dinghy. In that case it just wasn't secured properly. Funny thing is on that same trip, a couple days later we came across a dinghy floating a couple miles out. Just as we approached to pick it up we heard someone someone on the VHF saying they had lost their dinghy. We met up with them and handed it back.

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

My 25 footer doe not have space aboard to stow a dinghy, so I always tow. Many hundreds of miles, with both a 6'6" hard dink, and a 7'6" inflatable. Two crossings of Gulf of Mexico, and all through the Bahamas. You do what you must.

 

[JamesG161]

We tow, but with a secondary floating safety line. We use that line to retrieve and tie up at anchor.
Jim...

PS: Quit looking at "Green Flashes"

 

[Stu Jackson]

Many years ago, crossing Georgian Bay, I came up from below and noticed the dinghy wasn't there.

Many years ago, motoring up a slough in The California Delta, I came up from below and noticed the dinghy wasn't there.
Gee, who tied the knot? Uhm, guess who?!?
We turned around. A few minutes later a ski boat came roaring up the curvy slough towing our dinghy. Nice folks, and they appreciated the six pack we gave them.
We continued to tow the dinghy for the remaining week or so of our trip in the sloughs, but put it on the foredeck for the trip home across Suisun Bay and SF Bay.

 

[Rick486]

Years ago a friend lost his dinghy underway and never noticed it. For Christmas that year we gave him a beautiful stainless steel cleat mounted on a a varnished piece of teak, with a short length of line whipped on both ends. The implication was he needed to practice cleating a line.
He did not find it humorous.

 

[Tom J]

Our dinghy got airborne several times when we were towing it on a downwind run. It was a Zodiak inflatable, so no surprise that the wind picked it up like that. Finally, it landed upside down and submerged. I could only look on in horror, when suddenly it popped up and landed upright. We didn't tow it much after that.

 

[jssailem]

TomJ I think the dinghy was trying to tell you it did not like being towed. When you would not listen it threw a fit.
Appears that it worked..

We didn't tow it much after that.

 

[TomY]

after a friend lost his very expensive hard dingy in the chesapeake, we mused , with some dark and stormies, over a dingy alert system. it would involve rigging a very thin wire between dinghy and mother ship. the wire would be connected to a 12v battery source and an audio alarm . if the dinghy broke loose, the wire would disconnect and an alarm would sound on the mother boat. we never did fulfll this design because it was easier to just go buy a stronger painter.

Stronger painter, good solution, with a hard dinghy. We tow everywhere, even overnight, so we need a foolproof attachment.

Our painter is a 20' 1/2" braided nylon dockline that has the loop spliced into the tow end. The loop end comes aboard and gets cleated whatever length we need to keep the dinghy planing. Then we throw the loop over a cleat or a winch. At anchor, we just throw the loop over a winch. You can't loose the tow from the tow boat with that loop over something.

The attachment to the dinghy is through a hole in bow transom and tied with a bowline through another hole in the forward laminated frame. You can't loose the dinghy attachment, even if the dinghy disintegrates.

We've only lost the dinghy once with this system because I looped a similar looking dog leash loop, over a winch.

 

[Rick486]

We've only lost the dinghy once with this system because I looped a similar looking dog leash loop, over a winch. [/QUOTE]
Had we known you then Tom, you might have received a Christmas present as per my earlier post........
PS: Did the poor dog go overboard....?

 

[TomY]

We've only lost the dinghy once with this system because I looped a similar looking dog leash loop, over a winch.

Had we known you then Tom, you might have received a Christmas present as per my earlier post........
PS: Did the poor dog go overboard....?[/QUOTE]

Amazingly, I threw that loop on on Swans Island. We were nearly to Isle Au Haut, 10 miles away, before I glanced back (I know, I know,...how could that happen?) and realized,....

Gauging wind and tide, we back tracked 2 hours, and there was the dinghy, right where we figured.

 

[Rick D]

To digress; it isn't just towing (which I have done for thousands of miles) but sometimes at anchor. I was in Catalina Island's Avalon Harbor once. I had a 2hp air-cooled engine on my light inflatable. A big wind event blew through the harbor for about 15 minutes. In that time, the dink rose off the water and rotated around at the end of its painter for a short time, and landed upside down. We pulled it up and took the OB off. The Columbia 28 we sailed over was new to us and didn't have much in the way of supplies (about 1985). But, the engine disassembled with a Phillips head screwdriver. I cleaned everything with fresh water and blew out the electrics with the dinghy pump. I had no WD 40, so I used coconut tanning oil to lube it for reassembly. Amazingly, it ran fine. However, it smelled forever after that like Venice Beach in the middle of summer... not a pleasant smell.

 

[All U Get]

With the trade winds from the ESE this week the chop has been about two feet causing the painter to snap tight every so often. I need a snubber of sorts to ease the sudden snap. I changed the line from double braid to a single braid dyneema so maybe it’s causing the issue. Although watching other boats their dinghys snap the same.

 

[All U Get]

[QUOTE="Rick D, post: 1517170, member: 78256. I had no WD 40, so I used coconut tanning oil to lube it for reassembly. [/QUOTE]

Now see right here’s the difference between east and west coast. Tom would have caught a mackerel and squeezed the oil out of it to lube the outboard. Coconut tanning oil, really, and why’d you have a supply of it onboard. Tells me a little about someone’s habits.

 

[AaronD]

With the trade winds from the ESE this week the chop has been about two feet causing the painter to snap tight every so often. I need a snubber of sorts to ease the sudden snap. I changed the line from double braid to a single braid dyneema so maybe it’s causing the issue. Although watching other boats their dinghys snap the same.

I added a length of shock cord alongside a few feet of my dinghy painter; maybe about 6' of shock cord parallel to 4' of painter. Whipped to the painter every 6" or so into roughly equal-sized loops (a nice evening project while watching a movie with the kids). When towing, the shock cord stretches fully and the main painter takes the load, but it reduces the constant 'jerking' a lot. Hopefully that description makes sense. If not, I can dig around in the storage tubs and take a picture. The shock cord might degrade quickly in a sunny climate, but up here in the PNW, it's been fine for a couple seasons.