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Old 01-08-2018, 11:51 AM   #13
smitty477
Guru
 
City: Northport
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 2,046
Quote:
Originally Posted by diver dave View Post
You want floating line close to the tow vessel. You want some stretch in the tow line, however. I'd be thinking 3/8" nylon braid.
Two notable risks I'll toss out there for comments:
First; When the bow eye does let go with nylon stretch, it will want to hurl into the mother ship. I have been known to wrap a towel around forward of the whaler eye, but that's not very elegant.
Second; what's the plan if a vigorous thunderstorm develops with breaking seas?
For us there has been plenty of stretch with the V formed by the 5/8th 3 strand line at the towing boat side.
We do not tow from the bow eye - we install two towing points one on each side of the towed boats bow that are well backed up with a 2 foot square + back up plates.
We have been caught in storms with 5-7" seas that are mixed - not really comfortable but no problems with the tow until we could seek shelter.
We tow at speeds from 7 to 17 knots with the heaviest tow being right about 3,500#'s.
I found the scariest (riskiest) boats to tow were smaller RIBS below about 15' which would not be able to handle the seas, 'wagged' behind the towed boat , and did not have sufficient self bailing hulls - so we stopped towing boats like those.
I will try and attach some pics while towing later on - since photobucket went AWOL I do not have them handy.
If it is well thought out you will do well towing.
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