Looping with a dinghy

dwhatty · Sep 30, 2012

We are toying with the idea of doing the Little Triangle Loop (i.e. Hudson-Erie Canal-Canadian canals-Champlain Canal-Hudson) in two years.

We tow our dinghy now but it seems to me that using a davit system might be advisable/necessary on such a trip, especially in locks.

Anyone have any experience/advice on towing vs carrying a dinghy in canal systems?

jleonard · Oct 2, 2012

Was there this summer. Canadian rules say if you tow,you must pay for a locking pass for a towed dinghy. Been in the erie several times....never saw anyone towing in a lock.
I think davits are the wise choice. Then you don,t need to worry about where the dink is when the lock gets turbulent....and they do.
That said, my dinghy is just about as wide as the boat. I did scrape up the paint on the dink engine on 2 occasions when i didn,t allow for the extra space.
Next trip i will have a pad of some sort to protect the engine as well as the bow of the dink.

dwhatty · Oct 2, 2012

jleonard said:
Was there this summer. Canadian rules say if you tow,you must pay for a locking pass for a towed dinghy. Been in the erie several times....never saw anyone towing in a lock.
I think davits are the wise choice. Then you don,t need to worry about where the dink is when the lock gets turbulent....and they do.
That said, my dinghy is just about as wide as the boat. I did scrape up the paint on the dink engine on 2 occasions when i didn,t allow for the extra space.
Next trip i will have a pad of some sort to protect the engine as well as the bow of the dink.

Thanks for the info. Also, about scraping the engine as our dinghy is slightly longer than the width of the boat's transom.

Fotoman · Oct 2, 2012

I've done many locks over the years and I would never tow a dinghy in there. There is already too many things to worry about.

jleonard · Oct 3, 2012

dwhatty said:
Thanks for the info. Also, about scraping the engine as our dinghy is slightly longer than the width of the boat's transom.

I eventually fendered the bow of the dinghy and that worked well. You cannot always count on a starboard side in the locks. Sometimes they only let you go on the port side. Depends on where the water enters the lock, and sometimes on how busy and where you are in the "pecking order" of that lock.
So you really need to think about how to fender for both sides, or how to switch quickly if only fendered for one side.

boatpoker · Oct 3, 2012

I've done the Oswego -Hudson route many times but did not get to the western section until this year when we spent all of August exploring.
I just posted an article about The Best Deal On The Water with photos and some locking tips. It might be of interest.

dwhatty · Oct 3, 2012

boatpoker said:
I've done the Oswego -Hudson route many times but did not get to the western section until this year when we spent all of August exploring.
I just posted an article about The Best Deal On The Water with photos and some locking tips. It might be of interest.

It is of interest. Good info. Thanks.

Looping with a dinghy

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