Jim, I'm trying to envision a fiberglass dinghy hitting a pot buoy so hard as to rupture the hull. I know you're telling the truth!
Was the dinghy riding bow high? You say you were dragging a sea anchor, from the boat or from the dinghy (small, to keep it back?).
It's just that I slam into them all the time with our dinghy and never thought about damage. Especially back in that area of the dinghy (seems like they would just glance off).
What kind of dinghy is that? Not a Puffin is it?
The whole ride sounds pretty hairy but I don't doubt the winds, especially westerlies in September. Maybe I won't go out this weekend.
Tom, it has no branding, so I don’t know what it is, I’ve had it for almost 20 years. It was well used when I got it and has has a rough life since on the overcrowded Bayside dinghy dock. My friend thought it might be an early Puffin, but it is lighter than they are now. It wasn’t very heavily built, but I liked it because it’s light and row and tows well.
As to the damage, it was a dry dinghy with no damage when I left that morning. I did see it glance off some pots, but don’t know exactly when and how the damage occurred. I have been sailing those grounds with that dinghy in tow for two decades, so it is highly unusual. The only thing different was the speed. My boat was fast for it’s day and size but I usually cruise in the mid to high 5 knot range with occasional sustained 6.5 if the wind is good. That day I was slowing to 7 knots in the lulls, and consistently hitting 9 on the front side of the bigger waves, and saw 10 knots on the GPS several times. I was mostly in control with a reefed main and the Genny rolled up about 30%, but even on a broad reach I was severely rounded up several times. The dinghy’s bow was riding high but I thought it was solely due to speed, but I guess it wasn’t. Also it didnt fill totally until we slowed inside the harbor.
There were two large cracks, in almost identical points on each side at the water line and extending up. The only thing that comes to mind is the pots, Youve seen how thick they can be and at the speeds I was seeing I really had to be on my toes to dodge them. They are all toggled in that area from IaH up through Eagle island.
My boat will snag a pot because I have a mini skeg with some forward projection in the rudder, which will grab and hold a line, I’ve probably been snagged almost a dozen times over the years. That was what was scaring me the most that day, but thankfully I didn’t pick one up. At time they looked like a solid wall and I didn’t have much time to identify the toggle pairs.
I’ve repaired all the damage, even the cracked center little glassed in stringer that an overzealous buddy broke trying to pull the dinghy up onto the float in Bayside, but it’s destined to be retired soon. I want to build one of those Chesapeake lightcraft passagemakers, hopefully a post retirement project.