Ignorant Boater Loses Tender

Yes - I am that Ignorant Boater.

I was on a two month maiden cruise. I was moored at Sucia Island and tied my tender to a pole in my cockpit. I don't know many knots. I bought a book and intend to do some reading. Anyways, it was night and I didn't want to go through the hassle of lifting it up top so I tied it to a pole with a few half hitches and then a knot at the end to secure the half hitches. I don't know what it is. I call it a granny knot. I thought it was tied pretty well. The wind came up that night and I went to check on it and it was gone. My brand new $15k console tender with a 30hp motor - gone!! I didn't sleep well that night. What a horrible feeling.

The next morning I could see it on the rocks a few hundred yards away. I called BoatUS and they came out and spent about two hours building a ramp out of logs so they could pull and roll it over the rocks, down to the water. They did a great job. They really worked hard to minimize the damage of removing it from on the rocks. The damage was mostly superficial. Of course it lost some gelcoat and had scratches and gouges in weird places on top of the tender. It must have gotten wedged under some over hanging rocks at high tide.

My first mistake was to use a braided fender line to tie off the tender, The braided line is very smooth and slippery and the knots did not hold. I think my second mistake was to use the wrong type of knot but I'm not sure. I'm hoping to get some feedback on that.

Well, live and learn. I was lucky to get my tender back and as far as the damage. Nothing serious just some battle scars. I left the boat in Richmond BC. I'm heading back up from Palo Alto next week to continue cruising. I'm also bringing a kayak with me.

You should learn how to tie a bowline. It is very secure and you can add an optional safety on it. A granny knot will almost always let you down, I never use it.

One of life’s, little vicissitudes! Too bad Doc, hope you are having a good summer. Dan

Yep, a bowline perhaps with a couple of half hitches on top of it.

We have a 25 foot length of yellow nylon rope attached to the forward inside lift eye. Every evening when we are finished with the dinghy we bring that on board and cleat it loosely as a backup.

Know this: you are not alone...

I had eyes spliced into the dinghy painter, at both ends. One end is looped through the towing eye on the dinghy and it will live there until it is time for a new painter.
The eye on the other end I usually push through between the legs of a cleat, then over the horns. No knots involved and very secure.
Before making up the painter I measured the distance from the bow of the dinghy, at its closed approach to the transom, to the boat propellers and doubled it. With this painter, I don't need to pay attention to where the dinghy is when maneuvering, as the painter can never get to the props. It tows well close behind my 8 knot boat.

Knowing how to tie a bowline would have saved the dingy, it might save your life some day as it is a no slip knot used to tie a loop in a line for rescuing people. Secondly it sounds like you are using polypropylene line, it’s cheap, it floats and after that I have little good to say about it.

koliver said:

I had eyes spliced into the dinghy painter, at both ends. One end is looped through the towing eye on the dinghy and it will live there until it is time for a new painter.
The eye on the other end I usually push through between the legs of a cleat, then over the horns. No knots involved and very secure.
Before making up the painter I measured the distance from the bow of the dinghy, at its closed approach to the transom, to the boat propellers and doubled it. With this painter, I don't need to pay attention to where the dinghy is when maneuvering, as the painter can never get to the props. It tows well close behind my 8 knot boat.

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We did that with the line on our last dink. Put the bitter end through the dinghy towing eye and then through the eye in the other end of the line and pull it tight. When it was time to remove the line (after it got chopped by my line cutters) the only way we could get it off was to cut it - it was so tight. Did the job.

Hope this helps:
Animated Knots by Grog | How to Tie Knots | Fishing, Boating, Climbing, Scouting, Search and Rescue, Household, Decorative, Rope Care,

Bowline
Cleat hitch
round turn and 2 half hitches
Clove hitch

Our dinghy is up out of the water every night for three reasons. One is security, second is in an emergency at night, and its always at night, I just would not want to be thinking about the dinghy, and third is in the event of a nighttime event I don’t want any lines in the water around the boat that could potentially foul a prop, which of course would happen at the worse possible time.

We use stainless steel “clippie dippies” as our tender gets used extensivly to shuttle doggies to shore.

Maiden voyage? Really, it was just a bit of machinery damage, a lesson learned. Knots? Meh. You have something to say at dock gatherings/fire pit meetings...no worries, like I said, lesson learned. Boating is serious business besides all the fun stuff ("the best time you can buy") so you know now to be careful; wear that pfd, have one hand for the boat, stay out of the engine room when its running, all that stuff. Its a great life!

Over 20 years we always anchored at the back of the pack. Usually spotted a loose dinghy once a month.

Our system was to use two lines and cleat both of them separately. Had a friend who used to call me belt and suspenders about the two lines on the dinghy until he lost his dingy one night.

Others have used clips.

Bay Pelican said:

Our system was to use two lines and cleat both of them separately. .

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Yes.

Xsbank said:

Maiden voyage? Really, it was just a bit of machinery damage, a lesson learned. Knots? Meh. You have something to say at dock gatherings/fire pit meetings...no worries, like I said, lesson learned. Boating is serious business besides all the fun stuff ("the best time you can buy") so you know now to be careful; wear that pfd, have one hand for the boat, stay out of the engine room when its running, all that stuff. Its a great life!

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Two half-hitches should have held just fine. I suspect you put "two-turns" on the pole, and then a granny knot. That will not hold.

Why not cleat tie it to a cleat? Otherwise, the smoothness of the line is not the the issue. You do need to learn basic knots.

Cleat hitch
two-half hitches
clove hitch
bowline
figure eight
square knot (I prefer a double Fishermans knot)

These (above) will get you through 98 - 99% of what you need to do on the water. If you want to get into some lessor used, but handy knots:

rolling hitch
prussik hitch
water knot
Fishermans knot
Double Fishermans knot
Sheet Bend (similar use as square knot or Double Fishermans but better for two different sized lines).

Try googling...dinghy towing bridle.

A cheap lesson to add to your education. We have all screwed up at times.

I know a good selection of knots and have used them for 55 years. However, I did the same thing last year. I tied the painter of the dinghy to a swim step staple using a clove hitch. Bad idea with double braid line on a 2” diameter stainless pipe. If I had secured the knot with an extra half hitch, it would not have come loose. A simple bowline would have worked as well, or a rolling hitch, or a round turn and two half-hitches. All would have worked fine, except for the unsecured clove hitch I chose.

What is worse, we didn’t even know the dinghy was missing until a nice couple towed it back to our boat for us.

dhays said:

What is worse, we didn’t even know the dinghy was missing until a nice couple towed it back to our boat for us.

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I hope it cost you a nice bottle of wine.

When I backed down on my anchor after forgetting to shorten my dinghy tow last year in the Exumas and my line cutters cut the line, it cost me two bottles of wine. One for the guy behind me who hauled me, like a beached whale, onto his swim platform after I swam after the dink and couldn't get on board. And one for the guy who brought the dink back!

There is nothing wrong with double braid polyester or nylon line for your tender. You just need to learn a knot or two or tie it to a cleat.
A bowline in polyester or nylon will not come undone accidentally EVER if properly tied, yet can easily be undone, in most cases, when wanted.
A clove hitch is also a good knot to know, however, I wouldn't tie my dink up with it for any length of time. A half hitch around the line after the clove hitch makes it more secure, but still not enough for an overnighter, IMO.
I will often tie a clove hitch to minimize chafe, then a bowline for security.
Polypropylene line (the yellow stuff that is shiny with a plastic-like texture and floats) is not a good line for your dinghy. It is very slippery and does not hold a knot or splice well.

Dinghy tie up

Glad it ended well.
We have a few dinghy tie up rules:
The dinghy always goes in the davits at night without fail, or if its really windy, for reasons others have mentioned.
Visitors always tie up their own dinghy, and I always tie up mine when visiting others.
Always watch visitors back to their boat, or ask them to watch us, especially at night.
We have a large hook on the end of the painter to snap onto whatever is handy or around something and onto itself. Quick, foolproof and failproof.

Bay Pelican's method of using two lines is mine as well. I have a u-bolt on the exterior and an eye bolt on the inside. Two lines, and attachment points is a Second Best solution. The best is to raise the dinghy each night.



It is amazing how much smarter we get after a fiasco. Using two lines eliminates the possibility of an accidental loss. For ease, i also installed eyebolts in the middle of Algae, pointing inbound. I have can easily attach to the davit when coming home. Snugged up against the swim platform makes unloading groceries a breeze.

And Skipper is safer too. She said not always the best when it comes to jumping. Skipper is not her most attractive when wet.

A bowline with a bight of the right size, passed through the eye of a cleat and then over the 2 horns of the cleat is very secure, good substitute for a spliced loop if you don`t have one.
There was a time we used to leave a dinghy on a mooring buoy, using a bowline, sometimes found it loose on return and began to add another knot on top of it. I`m interested others do something similar over bowlines.

I use the nasty yellow polypropylene 3-strand for my dinghy tow line. I use it for a variety of reasons. First of all, it is very cheap. It also is highly visible and floats very well. It can be easily spliced. Finally, it has a fair amount of stretch which I like in a tow line.

It does have downsides of course. It doesn’t last all that long if exposed to lots of UV. Not an issue for me as it rarely sees the sun. The line will not hold a knot well at all. A well tied bowline will come undone as soon at it isn’t under load. It isn’t easy on the hands. Despite the drawbacks, it works really well. I don’t use it as a painter however. When towing, a spliced loop goes over a cleat or the line is cleated well.

foreverunderway said:

A bowline in polyester or nylon will not come undone accidentally EVER if properly tied, yet can easily be undone, in most cases, when wanted.

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I love a bowline and have been tying them since I was 5 years old. However, an unloaded bowline can become undone. There are a lot of sailors who can attest to that fact. It may not be common, but it does happen. I still used a bowline for years on jib sheets with no issues, but they can come undone.

A bowline is just a sheet bend with a loop. How many of you would trust an unloaded sheet bend to stay tied with no load on it?

dhays said:

... an unloaded bowline can become undone. There are a lot of sailors who can attest to that fact. It may not be common, but it does happen. I still used a bowline for years on jib sheets with no issues, but they can come undone.

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Must be the significant load on the jib sheets which maintains the bowline, I never had one loosen, and it sure beat a lump of ss shackle flogging about in the forward hand`s face.

BruceK said:

Must be the significant load on the jib sheets which maintains the bowline, I never had one loosen, and it sure beat a lump of ss shackle flogging about in the forward hand`s face.

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I finally switched to a halyard hitch for my genoa sheets that stayed attached to the sail year round (no longer racing). Great for that purpose but you have to cut it off after it has been heavily loaded. For the spinnaker I switched to a spliced loop at the end of the sheet and a soft shackle rather than a bowline.

Dirtdock: Can we call you Dirt? Anyway, it's great to be able to say that probably the majority of us that do anything have lost something due to an inadequate knot. I lost my second big fender just this week by using a hurried (and likely unrecognizable) knot of some kind on the rail. The fact that it didn't end up on some rocks is because there aren't any rocks around here. Like noted above......ya got a story to tell, and best of all, one you can joke about.