How much does towing a hard dinghy slow you down?

[Rivers & creeks]

So we're looking at 12 foot clinker sailing dinghies for an extended cruise next year, the older children will have gone on their first dinghy courses and we want to expand our sailing from the 11 tonne mother ship, some S&A around the Dutch inland islands. But davits for a 12 foot wooden dinghy are a complete no-no so we have to tow it. How much does towing slow you down? We passage plan to sail, motor sail or motor at 5.75knots. We've a dinghy in mind but if it takes a knot off the speed that makes the crossing four hours longer and therefore means night sailing - which ain't never gonna happen.

What's the experience tell you? Has anyone actually measured their comparative speeds with and without? The dinghy in mind is clinker, 12 foot long and reasonably solidly built but hardly a heavy weight.

Thanks!

 

[DanTribe]

Towing any sort of dinghy in coastal and estuary waters is fraught with difficulties. Towing a heavy non draining one a sea would scare me silly. It's not so much loss of speed but the surge and snatch and the probability of the dinghy ramming your stern. It will likely get swamped occasionally, how will you bail it out. It's aso lkely to be a liability in Dutch locks. Sorry to be negative but try to find an alternative.

 

[DFL1010]

It's not so much loss of speed but the surge and snatch and the probability of the dinghy ramming your stern.

Isn't standard procedure to tow one wave behind in a seaway? This means that if the dinghy gets a wriggle on it'll have to go uphill which ought to slow it down before it meets your transom, and dragging the towline through the wave will act as a shock absorber.

What I often see as an easy way to have an expensive day on the water is leaving the engine on the back of the dink - both by drowning if it capsizes, and losing both boat and engine if the tender parts company. Not sure why people do it (other than laziness) but it's non-rare in my experience.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

Consider that it'd only take a 2 to 4 hp outboard to get the empty dinghy up to your 5.75kts, and that a diesel inboard hp is worth at least two outboard horses then I'd say you wouldn't even notice it. (I'd imagine that you have at least 30). And since your rig gives an equivalent number of horses on an F4 reach then I'd say that 1/15th of your sail area being missing would be a lot less than one reef.

 

[William_H]

Probably running or reaching where there is plenty of sail power not really a problem. However when beating into the wind I think it would slow you down a lot. olewill

 

[thinwater]

Isn't standard procedure to tow one wave behind in a seaway? This means that if the dinghy gets a wriggle on it'll have to go uphill which ought to slow it down before it meets your transom, and dragging the towline through the wave will act as a shock absorber.

This can only be true if you sail faster than the waves. One of those things you read in books that doesn't actually make sense, does it?

I would never have a dingy I could not carry on deck in bad weather. Tow it sometimes, if that is easier, but realize there will come a time when you cannot.

 

[Uricanejack]

I used to have an old 8ft hard dingy I towed with a 24ft boat. I suppose it slowed me down. Not sure how much, not enough for me to bother about.
Pull it in really tight on the offshore side if docking or locking. Its not a problem.
If you enjoy it take it with you.
I still tow my inflatable.

 

[Iliade]

Do read http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?463175-Tender-Towing

Anyone know who sells a good welded s/s boarding ladder and can straighten bent pushpits? (rhetorical Q.)

Once a bit of a sea got up and regardless of painter length the dinghy overtook or rammed the mothership. It was less objectionable when towed with a motor fitted and down but that was too risky for passage-making, especially given it's inclination to submarine, after which it slows the boat down quite a lot...

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Thanks for that, it's a very different beast to the dinghy we're looking at, I wouldn't want to tow a shallow planning hull like that - huge kudos to you for trying, and in a Centaur, you have a lot more guts than me!

 

[dylanwinter]

this is my first summer towing a rigid dinghy behind the Centaur - it is clinker and I do not even know she is there. The dinghy gets up on the plane very fast and just creams along.I occasionally feel the drag with my hand and you can hold it with two fingers - I would have said no more than 5 lbs of pull. The little dinghy is fairly light and has never shown any tendency to swamp - she just skips happily from wave to wave. I have a tow rope with a bit of bounce in it and make sure that it is longer than the mother ship - never been overtaken or bumped in a summer of robust Scottish sailing

should she get swamped my plan is to let her go and hope that some-oone finds here and contacts me through the website. Towing the dinghy has transformed my sailing.

no tender pumping going on Liliy M anymore,

I love having a little sailing dinghy for those sunset sails when Jill has had enough sailing for the day - she rows beautifully.

I have been thinking about putting a dinghy style self baler in the stern of the boat.

D

 

[NUTMEG]

Towed 'Little Nutmeg', a 14' Lune Pilot with 75kgms of ballast in the keel. 20 odd miles in benign conditions and did not notice any change in speed.

Not a channel crossing but if not out in a gale, I don't see an issue. When berthing we tied it along side as mentioned above. CW's look like the could pull a trawl and I think a dinghy is insignificant.

 

[FullCircle]

I have a Walker Bay 8 with the inflatable tube collar. I find that it slows my sailing down by around 0.5 knots in an average swell of a metre or so, but less on calm water. The dinghy tows well, but will still surf into the transom downwind in a following sea. Not too bad for me as the collar acts like a bumper, so no damage.
However, if we are going anywhere more than a few miles, we hoist it onto the foredeck and lash it down.

I used to tow a 10ft heavy dinghy when I had my Evolution 25, and on a rolly entrance into the Colne my dinghy mounted the transom and came up over the pushpit, clouting me before disappearing back over the transom. However, as it slid back into the water, the transom of the dinghy scooped loads of water, and that caused real problems as the dinghy was then half swamped, causing us to slow alarmingly. I had to drag the dinghy back up the pushpit and tie it off to keep speed up.

 

[DanTribe]

I have just found some comments from Des Sleightholmes book, Trouble With Cruising, unfairly chosen to reinforce my prejudices.
Quotes from page 8.
" Nobody in their right mind tows a dinghy through overfalls or even on a run in anything of a following sea"..... "time and again it slammed into our stern"....... "it repeated the trick, the twin painters held, the ringbolt held, the stem and breasthook remained united but the rest of the dinghy fell astern."
That sort of reflects my experience of towing my kids dinghies.
Have you considered taking something that you might get on deck, e.g, a Topper ?

 

[[70521]]

I even put the inflatable on the deck if we are going out for anything more than a potter round the bay with a stop off for an ice cream in Dawlish.

 

[RupertW]

When sailing with my father years ago we towed a 9 foot hard dinghy everywhere behind a 24 foot triple keeler. We never went fast even without it. I don't really recognise the issues people had as we sailed in roughish weather and overnights many times with the dinghy behind. The "one wave behind" absolutely works in a following sea and in short East coast waves would often be two or three behind. I always thought it could turn or fill but once again - never happened.

But when he sold the old wooden boat and bought a GK24 then there seemed a point to optimising performance so a folding inflatable was a better option and I haven't towed a hard dinghy since - just a heavy rib these days.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I have towed hard dinghies for years, behind a 21-footer and a 26-footer. I can say that I have noticed any particular loss of speed as a result. I have never been rammed by the dinghy or felt any risk of that happening, but I tow on a 10m painter. The Heyland Swift I was towing this summer swamped and sank going round the Mull of Kintyre, but I think that's because it's low at the back and waves fell in. My normal dinghy, an anonymous 8' GRP pram, has come through far worse without a drop in it.

 

[dylanwinter]

When sailing with my father years ago we towed a 9 foot hard dinghy everywhere behind a 24 foot triple keeler. We never went fast even without it. I don't really recognise the issues people had as we sailed in roughish weather and overnights many times with the dinghy behind. The "one wave behind" absolutely works in a following sea and in short East coast waves would often be two or three behind. I always thought it could turn or fill but once again - never happened.

But when he sold the old wooden boat and bought a GK24 then there seemed a point to optimising performance so a folding inflatable was a better option and I haven't towed a hard dinghy since - just a heavy rib these days.

can't understand people with having problems with the dinghy overtaking the mothership - tow rope too short - simps

 

[EdWingfield]

I rescued 3 folk once. They'd been sailing a 3/4 decked dayboat towing an inflatable dinghy on a breezy day.

The dinghy took off in a tail wind and became jammed in the boom and mainsheet. They broached, took on a lot of water and all ended up in the drink. They transferred to the swamped inflatable. I took them in tow to nearby safety. A lifeboat arrived and towed the dayboat to shallow water where it could later be recovered.

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Crickey some horror stories! I've towed a Walker Bay 8 and 10 in the past and found them to be a nightmare, skating all over the place, shooting forward and the tubes gripping the water so that the towing drag was very noticeable. A bit like but not as bad as an inflatable which are horrible to tow.

Dylan, JD and others' stories are encouraging. Dylan what do you do when you're approaching a harbour or Marina and you need the dinghy on a much shorter tow line but you also need it to not hit the stern?

Reading Magic of the Swatchways MG towed everywhere and only lost it once - in a gale in the North Sea.

How long is your dinghy Dylan?

 

[JumbleDuck]

Dylan, JD and others' stories are encouraging. Dylan what do you do when you're approaching a harbour or Marina and you need the dinghy on a much shorter tow line but you also need it to not hit the stern?

Dunno about him, but for coming into harbour I just shorten the painter till the dinghy is about 1m behind the boat. I haven't yet encountered a harbour with waves big enough to cause a problem; I'd probably not want to go in if I did. Very occasionally, if we want to be as short as possible, we tow alongside - going through the Crinan canal, for example.

Another tip: you may need to adjust the height of your towing eye. Too low and the dinghy will squat and lose freeboard at the back. Too high and the bow will be pulled through waves. About 1/3 of the way up the stem generally seems to work OK.