Towing a dinghy

kocha44

kocha44

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Good afternoon,

Just wanted to check on something... Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen a number of yachts sailing down the river Orwell while towing a dinghy. Does towing a dinghy affect your speed/navigation anyhow or is this the smartest way of bringing a dinghy as opposed to stashing it somewhere in your yacht?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this.

Thanks
 
It's the most convenient way of transporting a dinghy in calm waters, but it will slow you down a bit. It's also unsuitable in rougher conditions as you risk either swamping the dinghy or losing it altogether. Like everything in boats, it's a compromise.

Pete
 
There was a long discussion about the best way to tow recently.

The answer is that towing is always an infernal nuisance and does slow the boat. If you take the weight of the dinghy painter in hand you will see how much drag there is. It is just a compromise that we sometimes have to make. I once towed an Avon around on the South Coast for three weeks, by which time it had barnacles.
 
I've towed a rigid dinghy (well, technically two rigid dinghies) behind for as long as I have been sailing. They slow you down a bit but not very much - painter tension is pretty small compared to sheet tension - and they make a surprising amount of noise. I have only once had a swamping and that was in very choppy conditions off the Oa when the towing eye had failed and I had to tow with a line around the bow thwart of the dinghy, which pulled her down a bit. I have never had problems when using a proper low-down towing eye. I use a long painter (10m) which avoids the dinghy-running-into-the-back-of-the-boat scenario.

For all that positive spin, I wouldn't tow if I had much choice, but I have no room to stow a rigid, collapsible or inflatable on board and although towing is my second choice, it's only just my second choice. There are huge advantages to having a proper dinghy to hand as well.
 
I never, ever tow. Grudge the loss of speed too much, and the noise is annoying too.
Got into a good little routine on our old boat- use the spinny uphaul clipped onto one of the side ropes, hoist the dinghy on and off the side-deck, tipped onto its side. Use an electric pump to blow it up, quick and easy. In this way I could get it inflated and launched in less than 5 minutes, and recovery and stowage didn't take much longer than that. It was only a problem in high winds, when it once turned into a kite (I lost my grip on the painter) and ended up flying horizontally several metres above deck height!

On our new boat I don't have a 12v socket in the right place (yet) to use the electric pump, but we have more deck space so I half deflate the bow section and fold it over, then stow the dinghy under the boom. I like to think it would form a rudimentary liferaft, but it does spoil the view from the cockpit a little.
 
I would wait until you have actually needed a dingy before getting one. When I was around your area I never actually needed one and at the end of the season regretted carting it round all summer. If you do need one then find one you can stow onboard because a towed tender is another thing to go wrong or worry about. As others have said towing in flatish sea is fine - when it lumps up then not many towed tenders seem to operate smoothly and are another thing to watch and worry over.
IMHO Staying out of a dingy makes sailing much safer.
 
Also loss of speed depends on the size of the towing yacht. Bigger boat less loss. Towing inflatables with stuck on towing eyes is a first class way of removing the eyes.
When I do tow which is not often and just for a short hop in calm weather. I have a bridle arrangement using the two outer eyes forming a loop through the middle eye thius spreading the load.
 
We tow much of the time during the summer when making day hops in settled weather. Longer passages or the prospect of unsettled weather, we bring the dink on board and tie it down on the coach house roof. On a 12 m yacht, no appreciable loss of speed. The down side of having it constantly in the water is the growth on the bottom, it needs scrubbing every week or two.
 
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