How to secure a dinghy

[mcdonald_ajr]

Planning on doing a lot more anchoring this year, and rowing (or motoring with my small outboard) ashore.
I have always had a nervousness about climbing a hill and looking down at my dinghy in the bay, only to see it drifting away, or being stolen by someone and leaving me stranded on the shore. Somehow it seems more vulnerable by itself on a beach, rather than in a crowd tied up to a quay.

Anyone have any neat tips for securing a dinghy? I lock the outboard and the lifejackets to the dinghy with a bike lock, and take the kill cord with me, but the oars still work!

I have a small grapnel anchor and was thinking of some arrangement of floating the dinghy out and tugging on a line to knock the anchor off the dinghy and keeping a thin line attached to the crown of the anchor ashore tied to a rock.

Or am I being paranoid? I've got the boat in the West Coast of Scotland, not New York Docks!

Cheers, Anthony

 

[fisherman]

We always used to 'anchor off', balance the anchor on the bow shove the boat out, tug the shoreline to pull it off. take the rowlocks with you?

 

[Searush]

West of Scotland is probably one of the safest places in the world to leave a dink, few people, people are honest & respect boats, tides are small & beaches lovely (mind the midges tho)

As fisherman says, taking the rowlocks is a good idea. On my own I drag it above the tide line, or lower depending on how long I will be. If at all doubtful, or it is windy (rubber ducks can blow away) have a folding grapnel you can tread into the beach. I have also turned the dink over with LJs etc under it & put a few rocks on it - but not sensible if you use an outboard.

 

[Gordonmc]

West of Scotland is probably one of the safest places in the world to leave a dink, few people, people are honest & respect boats, tides are small & beaches lovely (mind the midges tho)

On the whole I agree with you but there have been a couple of incidents which have made me more aware of the vulnerability of dinghies left on shore for any length of time. I too am West of Scotland.
The first was when someone took a stanley knife to three dingies in our privately owned enclosed dinghy park. A single slash to a sponson on each. Another dinghy was untouched.
Second, over the winter a dingy was stolen from the park. It had been secured with a chain through the bow D ring and padlocked to a post. The perp cut through the D ring patch.
I discovered the theft as I was due to use the dinghy, belonging to a friend, to get to his boat to check it out and spend the night on board. The local hotelier made some money off me.
The friend now deflates his new dink and takes it home with him.
I still leavy my dink in the park but use a long chain and lock attaching it to three D rings.
There is nothing to be done to avoid the first incident. Lets hope it was a one-off.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I have a rigid pram dinghy. I padlock the oars to a thwart that runs fore-and-aft using a very short 7x19 strop with a talurit eye at each end. Once padlocked, the ends of the oars cannot be lifted over the transoms and then slid out.

 

[l'escargot]

...Anyone have any neat tips for securing a dinghy? I lock the outboard and the lifejackets to the dinghy with a bike lock, and take the kill cord with me, but the oars still work!...

Drill a hole through each blade on the oars near the top and lock them with the bike lock too?

 

[LadyInBed]

Deflate it and put the pump in your bag

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Planning on doing a lot more anchoring this year, and rowing (or motoring with my small outboard) ashore.
I have always had a nervousness about climbing a hill and looking down at my dinghy in the bay, only to see it drifting away, or being stolen by someone and leaving me stranded on the shore. Somehow it seems more vulnerable by itself on a beach, rather than in a crowd tied up to a quay.

Anyone have any neat tips for securing a dinghy? I lock the outboard and the lifejackets to the dinghy with a bike lock, and take the kill cord with me, but the oars still work!

I have a small grapnel anchor and was thinking of some arrangement of floating the dinghy out and tugging on a line to knock the anchor off the dinghy and keeping a thin line attached to the crown of the anchor ashore tied to a rock.

Or am I being paranoid? I've got the boat in the West Coast of Scotland, not New York Docks!

Cheers, Anthony

You can lock the outboard and the lifejackets to the dinghy with a bike lock, and take the kill cord.

What about an oar clamp?

If the thwart seat is fixed to the dinghy you could use one of these through the seat and secure with a padlock:

A very useful device for securing your oars to the dinghy when it is left unattended. A hole is drilled through the thwart seat and the clamp passes through

 

[William_H]

Around here the biggest danger is kids thinking they will just go for a little paddle in any dinghy that they can find. They don't intend to steal it however inevitably they can't paddle back to where the dinghy was left so they abandon it. So do things like lock the oars in the dinghy and if possible lock the dinghy to anything like apost or tree. Old rigging wire with an eye at each end can be excellent.
I had a device a bit like Rum Pirate pictured attached to the forward edge of the thwart on my ali dinghy. The bs manage to flex the ali and spring the oars out so pinched my oars recently. That was with the dinghy upside down.
Things have changed a little here with dinghy stowage. For 30 years I have left dinghy cahined and locked on the local beach. Not too many problems except the oars went twice. Now the council have decreed that dinghies have go. About 150 dinghies affected. My solution is to buy a gopher electric scooter. I have fitted a tow hitch to the scooter and wheels to the dinghy. Keep the dinghy at home. So now I will look like an invalid going down to the water exceept with a 10ft dinghy in tow.
Doesn't help OP much however. good luck olewill

 

[Stu Jackson]

Now the council have decreed that dinghies have go. About 150 dinghies affected. My solution is to buy a gopher electric scooter. I have fitted a tow hitch to the scooter and wheels to the dinghy. Keep the dinghy at home. So now I will look like an invalid going down to the water except with a 10ft dinghy in tow. good luck olewill

Ah, olewill, that lovely Council, in their continuing efforts to support their own constituents...darn them all! I'd love to see a photo of you and your new rig. I can picture it now...does the Council require you to wear a helmet, goggles, leather, gloves and kneepads? All the best,
Stu

 

[sighmoon]

We don't secure ours, except to stop it drifting off. There's normally nobody else around for miles, or it's a busy beach, and people don't really know that the owner isn't nearby. In any case, it may be valuable, but it's probably not worth the effort of stealing it to sell on - there's a good chance of being caught in the act.

We did once come back to the dinghy to find a drunk taking his pre-school daughter out in it. He gave it back no problem, but he wasn't a natural rower and I suspect it's only down to the timing of our return that they weren't swept out to sea.

 

[Searush]

On the whole I agree with you but there have been a couple of incidents which have made me more aware of the vulnerability of dinghies left on shore for any length of time. I too am West of Scotland.
The first was when someone took a stanley knife to three dingies in our privately owned enclosed dinghy park. A single slash to a sponson on each. Another dinghy was untouched.
Second, over the winter a dingy was stolen from the park. It had been secured with a chain through the bow D ring and padlocked to a post. The perp cut through the D ring patch.
I discovered the theft as I was due to use the dinghy, belonging to a friend, to get to his boat to check it out and spend the night on board. The local hotelier made some money off me.
The friend now deflates his new dink and takes it home with him.
I still leavy my dink in the park but use a long chain and lock attaching it to three D rings.
There is nothing to be done to avoid the first incident. Lets hope it was a one-off.

I take it you are on Loch Riddon, personally, I would class that as "the Clyde" rather than "the West" & much more likely to suffer vandalism & theft.

 

[simonfraser]

fix a locker access cover into the bottom, take the lid with you.
beaching it is a good idea

 

[Graham_Wright]

Deflate it and put the pump in your bag

I like that. Doesn't stop a scrote slashing it with a knife out of revenge I suppose. I wonder if it could be re-inflated from a bottle (a pony or similar).

I was at an RNE exhibition one year and saw a demo of a sinkable dinghy. On arrival at the beach, clicked a valve and the whole lot disappeared beneath the surface. On return, pull a bit of string, dinghy surfaces and outboard starts on the first pull of the lanyard.

Very clever.

 

[fisherman]

I like that. Doesn't stop a scrote slashing it with a knife out of revenge I suppose. I wonder if it could be re-inflated from a bottle (a pony or similar).

I was at an RNE exhibition one year and saw a demo of a sinkable dinghy. On arrival at the beach, clicked a valve and the whole lot disappeared beneath the surface. On return, pull a bit of string, dinghy surfaces and outboard starts on the first pull of the lanyard.

Very clever.

I read about one of the voyages looking for the NW passage, they went into Hudson Bay thinking this was it. They had to overwinter, built a hut and sank the ship to keep it from the ice. In spring the ship had not survived very well so they broke it up and built another ship from the bits and sailed it home, the blacksmith was making nails from axe heads.