Pulling a tender

[Phil Dory]

What's the general feeling about pulling a small tender/dinghy? I understand the obvious problems, such as some loss of speed, maneuverability etc, but what about safety issues? Is there a risk of being rear-ended etc? How far back should it be? Is it a hazard during a gale?

I've looked and cannot find much written on pulling a tender. On a small boat with limited deck space, 20-25 feet, it seems like a good solution, but I can't find any discussion of whether it's a safe idea.

[paladin]

make a line 3 times as long as the dink...attach each end to a cleat or towing eye on the inside of the transom, bring the double line forward. I hope you have a towing eye properly located on the dink, run a short line through it and secure into a 10-12 inch loop, bring the doubled line through the loop and forward, tie an eye in the end of the doubled line...tow from there. Afix some fenders inside the gun'l of the dink to make it self right if it flips, try to put a cover on it, tow it 2 wavelengths behind

[sv Lorelei]

A lot depends on where and how far you're planning to sail. We regularly tow a 9 footer behind Lorelei (28 footer). I suppose we could fit it on the foredeck as we sometimes did with our previous dink, but it's a real PITA to Pull the dink up and flip her over. I designed our dink with a fair amount of deadrise and a moderate rocker so that unburdened she sits high, but her skeg keeps her tracking straight. She tows like a dream.

Most of our sails are short hops of between 15 and 50 miles. If you're caught out. You can (1.) Try and get the dink up on deck or (2.) Keep a sharp knife handy to cut her loose if she fills and sinks. We've towed through Long Island short chop 6 to 8 feet and never taken more than a cup full so we usually opt for the latter.

She really doesn't slow us down all that much but we've seen some real sea anchors being dragged behind boats. Chucks advice is a good rule of thumb. Play with the distance some to find the sweet spot. I usually tow from the windward quarter cleat which tends to put the boat directly astern us in most reasonable breezes. We've never been rear ended though we've had her make runs at us at times.

Finally. When coming into an anchorage or slip don't forget to choke up on the tow line. Especially before backing down on the anchor, lest it find the prop shaft and wrap itself around. Don't ask me how I know about this. Honest. It only happened that one time :-)

[Phil Dory]

Thanks both of you. That's useful, practical advice.

[Ben Fuller]

The other trick is a drogue. Then life starts to look interesting, Take a length of line equal to your tow line plus dinghy length and tie it to an eye in the stern of the tender. Tie the other end to your boat. Different people have different opinions about where to put the slack, but its probably easier to manage if its on the towing boat.

When it looks like the dink is starting to try to climb aboard, cast the line off from your boat and you'll have an instant droque that will keep the dink under control.

If you wander around in the cruising books of the 30s .... 50s when there were no choices and no rubber boats you'll see lots of stuff on dinghy handling.

[Ian McColgin]

I added Elvstrom bailers to the dory after she swamped in a brisk nasty and it took forever to lurch to a place where I could get in a lee and bail her out. Now that I've a boat too small to take my dink aboard, I'm putting a sterntube bailer in that. It's enough to keep any spray and rain from accumulating and enough to bail her in a few minutes if she really swamps.

[Stu Fyfe]

My 7ft dingy decided to leave me in RI Sound in some 4-6ft chop on the way to the WB Show last summer. She snapped the bow ring off. I had to pull her on deck over the cabin top because I didn't have anything to attach a line to. Not a great place for her in a 22ft sloop. So.... next long trip I'm using one of these rubber dock line snubbers to take the jolt out of the pull on the painter.
http://images.westmarine.com/full/118254.jpg

[JimConlin]

My experience is limited to cruising New England waters in a 35' sloop with an 8' pram.
For general daysailing and coastal cruising, towing the pram was fine. I never felt that the drag was an issue. I prefer a longer painter than most folks. 40' is not too long. An Elvstrom bailer would have been a help at times.
With our boat, it was possible to get the pram onto the housetop and for overnight, offshore or rough passages, I felt that was a good idea.

[Thorne]

I always liked the triple-line harness secured to each side of the gunwales and the tow / bow ring on the dink to a knot or ring maybe 12' forward, then a single line to the mothership.

The drogue sounds interesting, but I'd be tempted to put a fender at the end of the line to make retrieving it easier -- and reduce the chance of someone motoring across the line when deployed.

[Ian McColgin]

Fenders make interesting drogues. At low speed they float but due to inefficient wave formation they submerge at higher speeds adding considerable drag. I use yellow polypropolene from the dink transom to the main boat, letting out a bight as needed in a following sea and bringing it well in otherwise. It's especially nice if you've a sculling notch or oarlock in the transome as then all of the bight can be focused on keeping the dink back. I usually pull the dink of my starboard quarter and have the dink end of the drogue line on the dink's starboard quarter to encourage the dink to shear slightly starboard or at least not broach so hard to port.

[Dan McCosh]

I've pretty much given up attempting to tow a tender in open water. It works fine most of the time, but we've been hit by squalls that eventually get it out of control. Snapped tow lines, the dinghy going airborne, flooded by breaking waves, and flipped over. Recovering from these incidents just when you are having other problems with the weather generally is not fun. It does impress you with how bad recovering a MOB would be, however.

[Ian McColgin]

Much depends on a dink's towability. My current dink is one of the nicest towing boats ever. I've sailed some nasty goo up wind and down with her giving me no worry. Other dinks, especially very sharp and narrow, seem to get their head down and gripe.

[anniebskipper]

Much depends on a dink's towability. My current dink is one of the nicest towing boats ever. I've sailed some nasty goo up wind and down with her giving me no worry. Other dinks, especially very sharp and narrow, seem to get their head down and gripe.

Ian, are you acquainted with the "Fatty Knees" and how she tows?

[paladin]

Fatty Knees should tow just fine......

[Ben Fuller]

The styles that have a stem eye or a foot or so above the waterline seem to behave better. Volume in the stern lets them plane. Hard to beat a pram shape. My 10 foot Chaisson is pretty well behaved. That nice expensive gunwale guard all the way around helps not having to worry about things coming along side. A self bailer would be a pretty good idea; I have one around here that I can use. Try to get it someplace where you won't stumble across it. Can be kind of bloody.

[John B]

We've always towed. Apart from the fact that redundancy is good, two painters makes a difference. What I find is that you run one off to each quarter and as the dinghy surfs up on one the other tends to straighten it. Keeping the thing tracking straight keeps water out of it and means you don't get that shearing off with a broach or flip potential. We had quite a hairy sail a week or so ago in big conflicting seas and I was amazed that the dinghy had virtually no water in it after 3 hours or so.

tears still run down my face when I think of my mates experience with an inflatable he couldn't be bothered putting on board for a short sail about april last year.The history is that he lost two dinghies in consecutive years through a failed painter in one way or another so he made a really good job of the painter on this 'new' inflatable.( stops to take breathLOL)

He was hit with a gust and heeled quite a bit. The same gust flipped the dinghy and it paravaned down under the boat stopping his 42 ft cruising keeler dead in the water. The second gust knocked him down ,rudder out of the water and he stayed there because the dinghy( still 6ft down) held the stern up and wouldn't allow the round up.

I was only a mile or two to windward at the time but I missed seeing... ohhh I would have paid money to see it.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

A lot of good advice here.

I would add - lash the oars into the tender; do not just wedge them under a thwart - they will work loose.

Yes, I have been rear ended by a tender. Very embarrassing. It was back in 1973 and I was off the North Foreland, about an F3-4 but with a lot of left over slop. Running before a SE'ly. The pram smashed the rudder stock of the transom sterned parent boat and I discovered very quickly that none of the regulat solutions like towing a bucket, lashing a floorboard to a boathook, etc. actually work. I had to get a tow into Margate.

[Dave Davis]

We tow a 7 ft Fatty Knees behind our 19 ft catboat. She slows us down about a knot, and we plan transits at 4kts SOA. Our dink has a low bow eye, and we tow from there with a secondary attachment on the forward thwart, with a second line.

Worst we ever saw was around Beavertail on Conanicut Island with a howling SW'ly, she wanted to come aboard but we eased the painter and she settled out on the next wave back. It's great to have a hard dink, and the Fatty Knees is great for three of us, though it's getting kind of tight with the kid getting bigger.

Our Fatty Knees has traveled from as far west as Oahu to as far east as Vineyard Haven; the cutter's gone but the Fatty Knees remains. That's how much we like the little bugger.

[sv Lorelei]

Good point. We always take the oars aboard and keep the dink as light as we can. we have a towing hole right through the stem and the way she sits she tows straight. I was experimenting with towing from a halter line one day a couple years ago when we got nailed by a couple bit power boat wakes. Didn't notice the halter line had come loose till about an hour later. Scanned the horizon and didn't see a trace of the dink. Figured her for lost and since we were burning daylight muttered something to SWMBO about "just build another when we get home". Wind died off and we were mired in the infernal backwash off Bartletts Reef still trying to sail when a Tartan came up towing two dinks. One was ours and they graciously returned her to us! Single line tow from the quarter cleat from then on.

[ahp]

If your dink or pram has a centerboard trunk, water tends to slop up through it. At least mine does. It tows real easy until it gets a bit of water in it. Plug the CB trunk, or have one of those bailers.

[Phil Dory]

Would the problem of so-called 'wave particle rotation' be an issue? As you know, this situation occurs when two bodies are out of phase on the waves, so that one is climbing while the other is descending; if tied together, there is then an added pull exerted on each other. With a good swell, could the force from a descending mother ship on a climbing (out of phase) tender be significant enough to cause the smaller craft to nose into the wave and flood or to wrench one of the tow eyes? It would be a chore to have to adjust the tow line to wave length, especially in conditions of poor visibility.

[djn]

I pulled a 9.5' dink behind my boat for a bit over 300miles. At first I had it on a 20 foot line but it was noisey and jerky so half way through the first day I pulled the nose up out of the water and tied it off with just the stern in the water. Much better and quite. Cheers.

[Ian McColgin]

Wave partical rotation does not affect the probability of a dink to swamp. Head sea or overtaking sea, the biggest single factor is the bow's ability to either rise meeting the sea or ride safely along the face of an overtaking sea.

Depending on your speed and your boat's wake, sometimes your wake will add on to an overtaking sea to make a more seriously breaking crest.

Standard dink towing puts the dink riding with the stern just atop the second wake crest. If you let the dink out by hand, you'll feel the sweet spot where the dink's drag reduces radically. Some boats, especially slow boats like Marmalade, tow their dink best on the first wake crest, often snubbing the kink bow against the main boat's ample transom most happily.

But as waves increase, such a close tow becomes a hazard. Then, put her as far back as possible with a bight of floating line looped from one of the dink's transom corners to the other.

Look back frequently and dread if the off-watch comes on deck, searches the horizon and mutters, "So what happened to that funny little boat that was following us?"



There are three

[Ron Williamson]

We've found that a hard dinghy,streamed short astern while at anchor, is a good dragging alarm.
Twice I've been woken at 0400 to a fairly steady bumping.The boat was moving back but the dinghy was in the lee and hitting the transom.
Winds 'Light and variable' both times.NOT
R

[Dick Wynne]

I have my heart set on Doug Hylan's Beach Pea (http://www.grapeviewpointboatworks.com/peapod.html) as a tender, but she's 13ft, and my boat is only 25ft. But both are double-ended and slippery, and BP is small and light despite her length, and would surely tow well. Doug says she could be scaled down 6" in length or so. I like a proper row, which rubber does not offer, and of course BP can be sailed also. Just can't decide whether to commit to BP, too big, or not too big?

[Ben Fuller]

I used to tow my 10 foot Chaisson with my 18 foot catboat. Never an issue.

[Ian McColgin]

Beach pea is lovely but she'll tow hard as the speed gets up around five knots or so. Her lack of bearings aft will cause her wake to become a hole in the ocean out of which she'll climb only with difficulty. She has a sharp enough entry that she'd want to gripe and broach in a following sea.

What to do? Get a bow eye really low - even under normal load water at the base of the stem. Put a very serious bow pudding on. Then tow her with the bow a bit raised and held by one line from the eye and one from the stemhead and snugged against the main boat's transom.

I did this with the larger and heavier dory Leeward (Chamberlain gunning dory) behind both Goblin (Alden 43' schooner) and Granuaile (55' Marco Polo). Goblin's stern was strongly raked by I found I could snug Leeward up against the boomkin just fine. Granuaile's longer and higher boomkin was even easier to snug against, but I could also take her on the hip, snugged against a quarter cleat about 6' forward of the horn.

This was necessary partly to keep Leeward from putting her bow down and misbehaving in a following sea and to get her up to a position where she didn't form the huge wake that added so much resistance.

G'luck

[Jay Greer]

No one has mentioned my favorite way of towing off of the lee quarter and allowing the dinghy to ride just off the quarter wave, thus keeping it's bow slightly raised and the dinghy held out of the wake by the force of the wave. This also makes steering the tow boat easier.
Jay

[Steve Paskey]

I have my heart set on Doug Hylan's Beach Pea (http://www.grapeviewpointboatworks.com/peapod.html) as a tender, but she's 13ft, and my boat is only 25ft.

As an aside ... for a sweet double-ended lapstrake tender that's smaller than BP, have a look at Jay Benford's 11-foot "Oregon Peapod" ... www.benford.us/scp/11peapod.html (http://www.benford.us/scp/11peapod.html) ... paladin (chuck) used to have one and has said he thinks highly of it. Jay also has a 9-foot version, the "Pacific Peapod." Complete plans for both can be found in Jay's book, "Small Craft Plans."

Incidentally, Jay recommends putting the towing eye on these boats 3" above the waterline to help hold her head up.

[Phil Dory]

Re: Jay Greer's comment, there's coincidentally a thread entitled 'That yellow-hulled 12 meter' on Building /Repair. Under Elf's response, you'll find an old picture, labeled Brand IV, that shows a tender doing what Jay describes.

[Dick Wynne]

As an aside ... for a sweet double-ended lapstrake tender that's smaller than BP, have a look at Jay Benford's 11-foot "Oregon Peapod" ...

Thanks Steve, maybe the fuller stern would help towing as per comments above. And thanks to all for your advice.

[Tom Hunter]

Dick, one thing I notice when looking at very old workboat and yachting photos is that they often tow tenders that are large by today's standards.

I don't have personal experience doing this, but it does occur to me that a larger tender is going going to have smaller issues with hull speed, I'm not sure if that will help or not.

If all goes well I will be towing an 18' boat next Summer, I'll write something about it then.

[Dave Hadfield]

I've towed for many years, prams, and never had a problem.

It's the inflatables that don't tow well -- they fly all over the place, or if you leave the motor on, they drag too much.

My current pram is 10 ft, with deadrise forward so it doesn't make so much noise at night, and zero deadrise aft for "planing" surface when towed short, ie, I run the tow line over my stern rail and haul the dinghy up close. This adds a lot of "up" pull to the tow, and the dinghy "skis" along on it's after portion with very little drag. I can pull the line slack with thumb-and-one-finger.

But that's only into or across the wind. In a following wind and sea I just let it out a long way. This 10 ft pram of mine has a lot of rocker and 2 small aft skegs, and it never seems to trip or dump -- it just slithers around all day back there, mocking us in the ketch, staying dry and popping around like a soap bubble.

I tow on a floating mixed-fiber (basically poly) braided line so that it stays out of the propeller. This line also has a fair amount of stretch in it, which reduces the shocks.

The bow-eye on the dinghy is very low. If the dinghy rides over to port or starboard on a swell, and the wind is pushing it over there as well, and you jerk it hard, and the towing eye is up high on the dinghy, you'll flip it. The dinghy's bow-eye should be just clear of the water.

Dave

[soba]

I tow a little fibreglass jobbie, a Delta 10 dinghy, which I have a mast and a sail for. She rows ok, too.

Only thing, the delta tends to surf in to the stern no matter how we tie her. Solution we came up with is a 2 foot pole shackled to the bow bolt on the delta, with a small chunk of plywood on the leading edge. As soon as the delta starts to speed up and in, the slack in the towrope lets the pole in the water....plywood slows the dink just enough to put her back where she should be.

Works a treat, and can be used as an "emergency paddle" in a pinch. Like when your crew casts off the painter as you are stepping the mast...

soba

[Ian McColgin]

Goblin and Granuaile both had long boomkins that made towing hard as they were a bit high to snub the dink against and located just right that the dink could surf under and then get mushed down as the schooner 's bow rose and stern sank for the next wave. I put a short length of fairly stiff clear plastic hose over the painter that would jam against a shackle under the boomkin through which the painter led. With the painter shortened to where the hose jammed against the shackle and the eye on the dink's bow, the dink would be forced softly aside before it ran into our stern.

[sawcutmill]

Several years ago, I built a 13' Beach Pea by Hylan. I row it every day, during june thru nov.,about 2 miles or more depending upon whether there are fish to be had. I have cruised with it to Nantucket , the Elisabeth Islands and to Ct. It tows beautifully, never squatting , or running ahead of itself like Lew said it might.I have the bowline about 1/2 way tween the WL and the sheer.The painter is twice the length of the boat, with a stern line as well to tie her in the Hip. The one fault I would say is the most annoying- is that during certain calm days, she likes to nose herself up to the big boat, occasionally bumping the topsides as a motorboat wake causes the Peapod to behave badly, but then what dinghy doesnt?

[Saltiguy]

I remember many years ago towing my dink behind my sailboat. We were leaving the Connecticut River on an fast ebb tide, on a reach with15 knots of wind, right down the channel, flying a 150% jenny and ripping along. I was towing a 9 foot fg dink on a long painter (maybe 50'). That little dink towed so well, I sometimes forgot it was there.
On this day, a Sunday, there was lots of traffic going both ways - all powerboats. I was concentrating on seeing ahead, trying to peek under the jenny and hoping that the on-coming boats were yielding right-of way. We were flying down a narrow channel!

Suddenly, foreward motion stopped. The wind was still blowing, and the sails were full, but we had stopped. It took me a moment to adjust my brain. I looked back, and saw that the dink had decided to go around the opposite side of a big nun bouy we had just passed. We were stuck. Stalled. Held by the bouy and the 3/8" line to the dink. The jenny was pulling like crazy. Boats going by were looking at us in dismay, pointing and shouting. After some seconds (which seemed like minutes) the problem resolved itself. The dink twisted itself a bit and shot up the side of the big nun (not the little one that's there now) and launched itself easily 10 feet in the air. Our boat shot forward, the dink crashed back to the water, still upright and we were off and running. You should have seen the looks I got. Naturally, I put on my "no problem, I do it all the time, what are you staring at?" face. Hey, just another day sailing with old Captain Bill.

[Yeadon]

That's a fine first post.