You ever needed a tow?

Thinking about the shift from twins to single power, I have to keep reminding myself how many boats there are, just on our coast alone, which have run with one engine forever.

I also think of how many times I have lost use of an engine; twice. Once when my port I/O went through 2 props in one weekend and the other when a valve decided to take on a piston.

In both cases I had the other engine. Based on hours or miles those are pretty low occurrences which should be a comfort.

How many of you have needed a tow and why?

Nope, not yet............

As there's no towing service where we are and boats can be few once off the Inside Passage treadmill, we have a 9.9 outboard on the swim step mounted to a swivelling bracket. Might be enough to get us home, or at least to an anchorage to figure things out or wait for assistance. Never needed to use it, yet.........

Your timing is amazing. About 3 weeks ago we got towed for the first time. We were in AZ on our Whaler. The engine wouldn't run due to some bad gas. We got towed about 2 miles back to the ramp where we launched from by a guy on a Sea Ray 270.


I've towed others several times but that was my first and only tow. (Knocking on wood!)

Greetings,
Many, many moons ago (25+ years). Last run of the season. Beautiful warm fall afternoon. Boat full of in-laws. Boat empty of fuel. Twin engines, no gas about 8 miles out. Good Samaritan towed us back to marina.

MurrayM; said:

we have a 9.9 outboard on the swim step mounted to a swivelling bracket. Might be enough to get us home, or at least to an anchorage to figure things out or wait for assistance. Never needed to use it, yet.........

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Well now, since Mark suggests you get a new hobby, maybe tomorrow you can take the boat out and have a pretend breakdown just to see how that little J A Pan kicker will do. Iffin it don't work, then you can have a real breakdown.

In 1987. Managed to do it myself, by hip tying the dinghy to the 30 ft sailboat. 15 hp on the dinghy got us going at hull speed, so little time was lost.

koliver said:

In 1987. Managed to do it myself, by hip tying the dinghy to the 30 ft sailboat. 15 hp on the dinghy got us going at hull speed, so little time was lost.

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Good one. Not as easy putting a sailboat on the hip. Not real hard either, just have to get the fit right.

Having done that your 44 should be a piece of cake and no fear of falling off the swim grid. Course, so many folks now have tenders big enough to tow the condo anyway.

Hawgwash said:

Well now, since Mark suggests you get a new hobby...

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Say what

Don't a lot of mid-sized boats down south where you are use kickers on their swim steps to troll for salmon? No great leap of logic to use one for a get home kicker, don't you think?

I have never need to be towed, but I have towed two vessels who lost power and needed assistance.

"Having done that your 44 should be a piece of cake and no fear of falling off the swim grid. Course, so many folks now have tenders big enough to tow the condo anyway."

With a 40 on the dinghy I have tried it on the 44, just to see if it would work. It is a lot like pushing a condo.

Yes
On our trip south we went dead in the water about 2hrs so of Comox BC. Couldn't get the engine going but these wonderful people came along and towed us all the way back to Comox. Nice place to spend a few days.
Saw them again at one of the LaConner Classic Car and Boat Show.

Hawgwash said:

Well now, since Mark suggests you get a new hobby....

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Oh, got it...the "sweetie" joke

Hawgwash said:

How many of you have needed a tow and why?

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Boat's 40 years old this July. Have lost one engine, for various reasons, more times than I can count, but have never been towed.

Plugged fuel filter a number of times,
Rolled up a prop coming out of Fishermans Bay on low tide once, (My Dad)
Rolled up a prop coming out of Pirates Cove on low tide once (My Fault)
Shaft coupling came loose after yard didn't replace split pin, (That was fun!)
Throttle linkage failed once,
Crab pot line in prop a couple times,
Fuel lift pump failed once,
WIX oil filter failed coming through Dodd Narrows. (What a mess!)
Starter failed while anchored at Sucia Island. (shorted windings)
Sucked a grocery bag in raw water intake at Desolation Sound. (TG I had Diving gear)
Probably other times I've forgotten. . . . .

Not yet, but have towed a few folks. I also make sure to keep my towboat subscription active.

koliver; said:

It is a lot like pushing a condo.

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I've wondered, actually, with the soft snout of a RIB that wouldn't rip the swim grid, if it could be a pusher.

I've never been towed.

When I was young, before we had the tow services on the lake, I averaged towing 3 to 4 boats a year. Once the tow services came, I only towed on average one every two years. So, guess in 28 years or so there I towed around 20 boats. More than half I would guess were simply out of gas. I don't recall more than two twin engine boats I towed, one with outboards and the other with I/O's. Both were out of gas. A very different world on inland lakes. A lot of happy go lucky and not much preparation. No fear.

Now, while I don't own nor intend to own a single engine boat, I don't see anything wrong with them. Location and type boating would influence me.

Many twin engine boats get towed.

Some singles maybe never.

Part of the equation is just how handy are you? Do you have lots of miscellaneous small parts aboard that can be adapted? Will you take a small, educated risk to keep going? Things like this make a difference.

My single has stopped or had an issue pretty much every trip from/to Florida in the last 4 years. Fortunately never at a hugely critical time, yes in the middle of the narrow ICW with lot's of wind and current (those normal not critical unless just on the approach to a bridge with fair tide). But no tows needed.

3 times in 13 years needed a tow when running an assistance towboat..once up on a submerged sod bank, once with rebar from a crab cage wrapped around the prop and once when an oil cooler fell apart.

The oil cooler I might have been able to bypass and limp home but a friend was right there and only 1/2 mile to the marina.

But over 13 years, I bet I jury rigged something to get home or keep towing a hundred or more times. The last 4 months I ran the boat I had to manually jump the fuel pump with a hot wire. Not unsafe and we didn't want to take the boat out of service till its winter overhaul.

So I am not fearful of singles, not at all....are twins nice on multiple levels...sure. I like not paying for a second engine and maintaining it...but having owned both singles and twins (and run both commercially for 15 years)....I can't say a single has stranded me any more than the twins that I run 1/10 the time.

psneeld said:

Many twin engine boats get towed.

Some singles maybe never.

...but having owned both singles and twins (and run both commercially for 15 years)....I can say a single has stranded me any more than the twins that I run 1/10 the time.

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Did you mean for your last sentence to say "can't"?

In my readings before Dauntless, I never saw any significant differences between Single and Twins.

The advantage Twins had in redundancy, was mitigated by the damage caused to the running gear by running aground not having a keel to protect them.

And running aground seems far more common than engine failure.

I got towed last season in my 30' sailboat when the engine died about a mile from the marina. Zero wind and an ebbing tide made it impossible to even consider sailing in. TowBoatUS did their thing and it was easy. Well worth the yearly premium, IMO.

A couple of years ago I also towed a sailboat in the Elizabeth River up from Norfolk while headed for the Dismal Swamp Canal...he had run out of fuel and was drifting towards the commercial docks. Towed him back out into the fairway, gave him a little fuel to get back to a marina.

Thanks Richard! Fixed.

I didn't mean this to become a singles vs twin discussion...but obviously having ANY means of secondary propulsion from sails, to wing engine to powefrful enough dingy, etc...might mean the difference of a tow or not.

What CAUSES you to need a tow can be debated on forever like the S vs T discussion....

Edelweiss said:

Boat's 40 years old this July. Have lost one engine, for various reasons, more times than I can count, but have never been towed...

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Yikes Edelweiss, with a list like that, you must be sucking all the bad boat-engine karma away from the rest of us, thank you. Never been towed, although I did lose the starboard engine in the fairway of the marina once which resulted in a hideous landing. Some people still run for their lives when they see me coming at the marina. We did tow a jet skier a couple miles a few years ago - he sucked a water skiing tow line through his intake grid, then a big wave rolled his jetski over the wrong way (apparently they shouldn't be rolled a certain way or it floods the innards). That did not go well, the jetski was swamped halfway up to the seat and kept rolling over. If I had it to do over again I would have snugged it up alongside and not tried to tow it trailing behind.

I have needed two tows in 22 years with this boat. Once a poly tarp wrapped around my prop and another time I lost an injector line. The USCG Auxiliary towed me once on the Delaware river and the other time was a Boatus/SeaTow type off the Jersey coast (might even have been Psneeld).

I could have limped home with the broken injector but it was just easier to call and I pay for towing services. Breaking down on the Delaware can be resolved by just swimming to the side and calling a taxi.

I lost use of my engine when the exhaust connector on the manifold sheered off. I jury rigged a new connection with aluminum foil and stainless wire that I figured would be good for a couple of minutes. I hip towed my 36' boat (not the boat in the avatar pic) with the dinghy until I was within a couple of hundred yards of home then fired up the engine for that last bit. My jury rig held, but wouldn't have lasted much longer.

Ordered a new manifold the day after I got back. Received it two days later and I installed the next day. Back in business on the 4th day after the event for about $800.

Once on a previous boat when I anchored too close to shore and the tide went out from under me. I had recently moved from an area with minimal tides to one with a much greater tidal range. I was towed off the sandbar and didn't need any more assistance.


Towing insurance is much less expensive than buying and maintaining a second engine. And a second engine won't help if they both share the same fuel supply and you take on bad fuel.

WesK said:

Towing insurance is much less expensive than buying and maintaining a second engine.

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Statement is very true, but a couple of points about them. Towing insurance is only good where there are towboats and where the insurance is in force. We have quite a few members who go out of the country. We have others who go offshore. We have both tow coverages, but we've boated many places that would be no help.

I managed to double gasket an oil filter on my Bayliner during an oil change, the boat got about a mile out before the gaskets slipped off of each other and all the oil hit the bilge. It was a short tow, and I learned to be very careful to check that the gasket on the old filter comes off with the can.

Never been towed, not even my single-engine automobiles. Nevertheless, had a throttle cable break on my '69 VW Bug decades ago, but the failure occurred in the home's garage.

AKDoug said:

I managed to double gasket an oil filter on my Bayliner during an oil change, the boat got about a mile out before the gaskets slipped off of each other and all the oil hit the bilge. It was a short tow, and I learned to be very careful to check that the gasket on the old filter comes off with the can.

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Something else that I have never thought of, but will now make a point to check. Thanks!

The one time I had an engine fail me while I was offshore (well, 10 miles out), I fortunately had a twin engine boat and was able to motor home on the other engine. It happened after we were fishing at anchor and, according to Murphy, that is when the starter decided to quit working.
I've owned single engine boats since then and, to this day, I'm very reluctant to shut it down if I'm more than a mile or so offshore. When I fish offshore, I troll.

My experience has generally been that, once I get an engine started and running, it will keep running (as long as it has good fuel). But once I shut it down, the odds of me needing a tow home increase dramatically.

I have. An impeller failure on my single engine Mainship. Had been in really shallow water that day and maybe the abrasive sand along with a fairly used(read lack of mtx) impeller caused it to fail. It was at 10pm. Towed about 2 miles. Cost...$280. I did not have tow insurance. The tow operator was alomst apologetic at having to charge me. I woke him up when I called. I had absolutely no problem with paying him that amount. And while I have occasionally held tow insurance, I usually don't and am still well ahead.

With that said, it is not always engine failure that causes the need for a tow. Going aground being another issue that has nothing to do with the number of engines. A 47 Hatteras in our party this last weekend managed to get stuck enough to call Sea Tow. He was a member. We were every bit of 20 miles from where the Sea Tow boat was based. That would have been an expensive incident had he not had the membership.

Also, I notice starter failures on twin engine boats. I have seen a sportfish that had this happen. Did they just surrender to limping home on one engine???? Nope!!!! They started one and then put the good starter on the other engine and then started the other!!!!!