Dinghy Storage Opinions

Hello,

I don't have a trawler, but we are anticipating a purchase, and are doing research, attending events, etc.

I have read a bit about dinghy selection and storage, but I can't seem to come to any conclusion as to storage.* I think we will end up with a boat that has a mast/boom set-up, with room on the upper deck for the dinghy, assuming a 10 footer, and a 10 HP motor.

I don't want to get in a situation where I am reluctant to use the dinghy because of the time and effort it takes to launch and stow it with an upper deck boom.* I know that long-term towing is a negative, and I just have something against having it hanging off of the back, vertically or horizontially.

So that brings me back to the mast and boom.* And the thought of it gives me the willies, particularly without hydraulics and and even minimum boat movement.* I suppose that part of my issue is that I have never seen a boom in use.

Do*many folks that use their dinghys a few times a week rely on a boom?* How long does the process take?* Can it be single handed?

Thanks,

Wizard

Hi Wizard,

That subject has been discussed at length. *Much info is avialable. *Go to the blue bar below you sign in box. *Click on "search". *Type in the box "dinghy davits". *A lot of threads should come up.
*

Wizard, I have two movable davits. I have different post on top of the boat so I can move stuff around on top. Very handy. If you don't have a boat yet buy a dingy and get used to it. If you buy a small inflatable with a motor after a few launches out of the back of the truck you will have successfully worked the willies out and be ready for a davit.

We have a mast/boom to store the dink on the roof of the Eagle.* If you buy a dink that meats the weight limitation, correct rigging/harness to connect the dink to the cable, and electric winches.* It only takes a couple on minutes with the electric winches to pick up off davit swing the dink out and power the winch down.* You can buy 2000 lbs electric winches at Harbor Tool for 75 bucks with a remote up/down control. On a calm day I can do it by my self and on a rough day need another person to hold the dink steady.* Just do not buy a dink that is to heavy/big for the mast and boom or for you to handle.*

*


-- Edited by Phil Fill on Tuesday 6th of March 2012 12:09:08 PM

The only thing I will offer about dinghy storage is that in my opinon, it need to be stored in a manner in which it can be gotten into the water quickly, easily, and safely in case of an emergency. In my opinion and from my observation this rules out cabin top storage and definitely boat deck storage, which I have seen break windows and injure people on deployment in calm water on a nice day.

To me, there are only three options for dinghy storage on boats of the type we have. On davits suspended over the transom, on a vertical swim-step mount like Weaver Davits, Seawise Davit, etc., or towed. That's it in my book. While my avatar photo shows a dinghy on our aft cabin, that is not our "working" dinghy. It's a lovely little Montgomery sailing dinghy that came with the boat and that we use for sailing and storage of things like crab pots and outboard fuel. It is launched and retrieved with the mast and boom and takes forever to get in and out of the water.* We could never get it deployed in an emergency.

Our everyday dinghy is what I took our avatar picture from, which is a Livingston hardshell dinghy that is carried vertically on the swimstep on Weaver davits.* We could have it in the water in less than a minute if we had to.

One of the big discussion items on dingy storage is whether or not you might need it in an abandon ship situation.

If you are using it as a lifeboat...the less than 1 minute launch in HORRIBLE conditions may be a consideration.

If you have a liferaft and don't need a dingy launched quickly or easily...the options are endless.

I dislike the vertical storage option on the swimplatform...but for my boat I like it over the alternative of big, permanent*davits.



-- Edited by psneeld on Tuesday 6th of March 2012 03:06:02 PM


-- Edited by psneeld on Tuesday 6th of March 2012 03:07:13 PM

If you cruise , rather than marina hop , a dink on davits will hold a week or two worth of garbage , out behind the boat.

FF wrote:
If you cruise , rather than marina hop , a dink on davits will hold a week or two worth of garbage , out behind the boat.

Click to expand...

FF- Wouldn't you want all that garbage about 150' behind you, rather than right on the boat with you?*

Scott-I agree with you regarding life raft on board. However, my guess is that for most of us, our dink IS our life raft. Speculation only. In our cruising waters, we see mostly local cruisers, rather than blue water cruisers.*


-- Edited by Carey on Wednesday 7th of March 2012 10:06:25 AM

We have our RIB on the swim platform with a Sea Wise davit system. We tow it 90% of the time and it can be deployed in less than a minute. I like the added weight closer to the water rather 10ft higher up.

When you carry one on the top deck the decision to launch gets a longer thought. Not that there is that much to it, it just takes time and energy.

This set up has worked very well for us and is quite common. We use our dinghy about every day when cruising and with a bit of engineering, one of us can launch and retrieve it alone. http://trawler-beach-house.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-dinghy-and-big-change.html . The outboard hoist has made putting the outboard on and off simple and I am installing an electric winch right now to facilitate the raising and lowering. Chuck

No need to take the outboard on and off with this hinged mount and hand cranking winch. It is made by Sea Wise Davits. *

http://www.davitsystem.com/demo.htm

*

"Wouldn't you want all that garbage about 150' behind you, rather than right on the boat with you?"

Not really, In many anchorages you would loose a dink 150 ft behind.

*

In some areas your dink will go BY BY if left floating, full or not.

*

Today plastic garbage bags are air tight.


-- Edited by FF on Thursday 8th of March 2012 04:42:53 AM

We are also looking for an easier storage option for our dinghy. *We do have a davit/crane that can lift our dinghy up to the flybrige aft deck, but for quick everyday use, we would prefer something easier and quicker.

We have looked at a system created by Hurley Davits and wonder if anyone has every used this system.*

There was a thread started in 2007 asking about these davits, but no one ever replied on the thread.

The link to the Hurley site is*

*http://www.hurleymarine.com/davit2.html

and there is also an actual demo on*http://www.hurleymarine.com/Davit_Directory.html

We would love to hear if they are worth the investment. *(We would need to use the 36" mount for smaller swim platforms.


-- Edited by Delia Rosa on Thursday 8th of March 2012 10:28:15 AM

Delia Rosa wrote:
We are also looking for an easier storage option for our dinghy. *We do have a davit/crane that can lift our dinghy up to the flybrige aft deck, but for quick everyday use, we would prefer something easier and quicker.

We have looked at a system created by Hurley Davits and wonder if anyone has every used this system.*

There was a thread started in 2007 asking about these davits, but no one ever replied on the thread.

The link to the Hurley site is*

*http://www.hurleymarine.com/davit2.html

and there is also an actual demo on*http://www.hurleymarine.com/Davit_Directory.html

We would love to hear if they are worth the investment. *(We would need to use the 36" mount for smaller swim platforms.



-- Edited by Delia Rosa on Thursday 8th of March 2012 10:28:15 AM

Click to expand...

*Unknown quality...but the principle is exactly what I want...

Downside...I wouldn't advise it in rough weather or breaking inlets (just when you don't want to tow either)...so an alternate storage area is possibly necessary...and that goes back to the question "is your dingy your liferaft?"* Though I think many are fooling themselves that a stock dingy is EVER a liferaft.

I may make just an extendable cradle for my dink...and lift it on with my boom.* Still haven't figured out the rough weather situation.

psneeld wrote:

Though I think many are fooling themselves that a stock dingy is EVER a liferaft.

Click to expand...

One aphorism about a liferaft is that you should "step up into a liferaft", so if you truly want to use an (upright, not filled with junk and...um...refuse) dinghy on an upper deck, you could simply sit in it and wait for the boat to sink out from under you. Of course, this is not a great*plan if you're abandoning ship due to fire!

psneeld wrote:Delia Rosa wrote:
We are also looking for an easier storage option for our dinghy. *We do have a davit/crane that can lift our dinghy up to the flybrige aft deck, but for quick everyday use, we would prefer something easier and quicker.

We have looked at a system created by Hurley Davits and wonder if anyone has every used this system.*

There was a thread started in 2007 asking about these davits, but no one ever replied on the thread.

The link to the Hurley site is*

*http://www.hurleymarine.com/davit2.html

and there is also an actual demo on*http://www.hurleymarine.com/Davit_Directory.html

We would love to hear if they are worth the investment. *(We would need to use the 36" mount for smaller swim platforms.



-- Edited by Delia Rosa on Thursday 8th of March 2012 10:28:15 AM

Click to expand...

*Unknown quality...but the principle is exactly what I want...

Downside...I wouldn't advise it in rough weather or breaking inlets (just when you don't want to tow either)...so an alternate storage area is possibly necessary...and that goes back to the question "is your dingy your liferaft?"* Though I think many are fooling themselves that a stock dingy is EVER a liferaft.

I may make just an extendable cradle for my dink...and lift it on with my boom.* Still haven't figured out the rough weather situation.

*We do have the ability to move our dinghy up onto our flybridge deck for bad weather situations... but agree with you that the principle of this system seems good. *We would just love to find someone who has actually used the system to find out the real pros and cons vs what an advert describes!

The other problem with siting in a dinghy and waiting for the boat to sink out from under it is that boats never seem to cooperate when they sink. They usually turn over or onto their side or upend stern or bow down. So the likelihood of your dinghy ending up in the water rightside up with you in it are pretty slim. The dinghy could even get damaged as the boat turns over or does whatever it's going to do.

Great Laker wrote:
No need to take the outboard on and off with this hinged mount and hand cranking winch. It is made by Sea Wise Davits. *

http://www.davitsystem.com/demo.htm

*

Click to expand...

*We looked into this system and it looks great ... but even the manual system was over $4800.00 plus install of $1000.... too pricy for us!

Delia Rosa wrote:Great Laker wrote:
No need to take the outboard on and off with this hinged mount and hand cranking winch. It is made by Sea Wise Davits. *

http://www.davitsystem.com/demo.htm

*

Click to expand...

*We looked into this system and it looks great ... but even the manual system was over $4800.00 plus install of $1000.... too pricy for us!

We accomplish more or less the same thing albeit not so easily by using a swivel mount for the motor on the dinghy and the boom fall to deploy and retrieve the dinghy on its Weaver davits.* Where retrieving the dinghy used to be a brute force, one-two-three-heave operation it's now an easy one-handed operation using the boom fall.* The fall is long enough that we don't have to reposition the boom at all to do this.

Marin wrote:Delia Rosa wrote:Great Laker wrote:
No need to take the outboard on and off with this hinged mount and hand cranking winch. It is made by Sea Wise Davits. *

http://www.davitsystem.com/demo.htm

*

Click to expand...

*We looked into this system and it looks great ... but even the manual system was over $4800.00 plus install of $1000.... too pricy for us!

We accomplish more or less the same thing albeit not so easily by using a swivel mount for the motor on the dinghy and the boom fall to deploy and retrieve the dinghy on its Weaver davits.* Where retrieving the dinghy used to be a brute force, one-two-three-heave operation it's now an easy one-handed operation using the boom fall.* The fall is long enough that we don't have to reposition the boom at all to do this.

*Once we get Delia Rosa back in the water, that is the next thing we are going to try, using our dingy crane to lift the dingy up to the swim platform.... because the crane is off centre, ie on the port side, we are not sure how neatly/easily this will work!

psneeld wrote:I may make just an extendable cradle for my dink...and lift it on with my boom.* Still haven't figured out the rough weather situation.

Click to expand...

When you mention an extendable cradle.... are you referring to something extending out from your swim platform that you could lift the dinghy onto with your boom?

Delia Rosa wrote:
psneeld wrote:I may make just an extendable cradle for my dink...and lift it on with my boom.* Still haven't figured out the rough weather situation.

Click to expand...

When you mention an extendable cradle.... are you referring to something extending out from your swim platform that you could lift the dinghy onto with your boom?

*yes...my swim platform is too narrow...

We would love to see what you come up with!

right now just thinking of some square aluminum stock that can be inserted into larger or just some square "U" bolts under the platform with some basic "chocks" bolted on top.

Be sure to secure the dink with very strong* holding straps where ever you decide to stow it, you don't want to tempt Neptune..

We carried our dink on the cabin top of our 40' Wittholz steel trawler and it*took about 5 minutes to launch or retieve.**You can see the small 12v electric winch on the boom.*Crossing Lake Michigan in 1999 we got caught in un-forecasted 45 kn weather that lasted*for hours. The weather was so bad we sat on the floor by the helm and kept our eye on the radar screen.**Fortunately the autopilot was working. The rear straps holding the dink parted and the back end of the dink w/engine swung over the starboard side. *I had to climb up and secure it which took a good 15 minutes and I was exhausted.* Our other option was to wait until the forward strap parted and we would lose the whole thing and we*had no plans of trying to go back*for it.



*


-- Edited by meridian on Thursday 8th of March 2012 10:29:27 PM

Please excuse the last post. That picture size got out of hand...


-- Edited by meridian on Thursday 8th of March 2012 10:28:59 PM

Never mind - gave us a good look, and she's a really nice boat. Sort of like a steel version of mine almost....

psneeld wrote:
*yes...my swim platform is too narrow...

Click to expand...

*Scott, my platform is also a bit narrow for some of the fancier systems, even if I could afford them, so I just clip my ducky onto the weaver snap thingies with the side ropes, which are very firmly attached, (and once I gave up on ever getting the glued on fittings to stay on), then haul her up with a sort of block and tackle arrangement, attached to a strong cleat on the gun'l & taken over to the opposite side rope and clipped on with a spring-loaded hook fitting, taking off the Honda 2 hp first, of course.

Works for me, but it would not do for a heavy dink.

Meridan, great looking boat. *I with PeterB. *Why don't you post more pictures in the album for members boats.