Dinghy Tow

[Davb1947]

Anybody else have one of these?

From Davron Marine Products. Davron Marine Products (Dinghy-Tow)

Tows dinghy with stern first, out of water, dinghy bow in the water.

Seems to work well, but I have very little experience with it.

 

[Comodave]

Interesting idea. Would like to see some videos of it underway. No pricing on the web site.

 

[markpierce]

Interesting to see what happens in a following sea.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

We see a lot of tows in B.C. but not backwards....

 

[boomerang]

Interesting to see what happens in a following sea.

Exactly! Following seas at displacement speeds seem like they would cause havoc and quartering seas off of the stern seems like it would be harder on everything yet.
I think weavers are the better option...all in the air or none.

 

[caltexflanc]

You see a fair number of sailboats tow their inflatables that way.

 

[diver dave]

It would be awful. Water in the bow has no way to get out.
And, huge forces generated by crossing seas.

 

[caltexflanc]

Well the product has been around for 20 years.... given the deisgn, I can see how it would do just fine in all but the very most severe conditions, that few would be out in the first place.

 

[Davb1947]

I haven’t used it but I’m thinking it’s saving grace will be that there is very, very little in the water.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

It looks interesting, I have never seen this concept before.

I always back into transient slips, could cause some concerns doing that.

pete

 

[psneeld]

As posted earlier this thread and I have in several other threads, more common with sail but goes back decades.

There are a lot of marinas on the East Coast that only allow bow in due to shoaling at the bulkhead and I may have only backed in several times in 12 years and 20,000 miles of ACIW cruising for various reasons. Almost never an issue to bow in if you want to and requested properly

I would have done it in a second had I not made a custom davit that worked great or my boat set up a little better for it. The other issue is you might have to drop it in a lot of marinas and bring it in close so it doesn't stick into the fairway too far.

 

[rslifkin]

Unless there's an easy way to tip the dinghy vertical, I can definitely see needing to move the dinghy elsewhere for docking (or pay for a dinghy-length of extra size).



As far as bow in vs backing in for a transient slip, I leave it up to whether depth forces bow in, whether slip shape and layout means the boat will fit better one way vs the other, and if either will work, I'll do whichever puts the dock on the port side. And if we're likely to want use of the dinghy and there's not ample space to drop it behind us and maneuver it out while backed in, then we'll go bow in.

 

[psneeld]

Depending on just how much of an storage angle/length of dingy will determine how many times the dingy left in this stored position is even an issue for transient slip length charge.

Yep, another one of those "it depends" threads.....