Towing an inflatable tender with a 26X

[Gary N]

We have never tried towing our small inflatable tender with our Mac and was wondering how much it would effect the sailing of the boat. Deflating the tender, stowing away and then re-inflating will all be too much hassle I think.

Anyone got any advice on whether this is possible and also what's the best way to do it, i.e. how close to the boat should the tender line be?

Gary

[Catigale]

There has been some good discussion on this, but i didnt have any luck with search.
standby...

In decent seas, towing is pretty easy and shouldnt slow you too much. motor off the dink of course.

[c130king]

Gary,

Here are three I found doing a quick search. I think they have info that might help you out.

Towing a Dinghy: How much drag?

Need advice on suitable dinghy

Towing a Tender vs. Carrying it on the Fore-Deck?

Cheers,
Jim
Sailing on König

[Sumner]

On our first ever sailing (trying to sail) 5 day trip....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... cPhee.html

....we pulled the inflatable behind the boat and had problems with it running into the back of us, the line wrapping around the rudder and outboard a couple of times during no wind.

It wasn't what we liked, so I made a bar.....



.....that holds the swim ladder out....



....horizontal and now we tow with the dinghy pulled....



....up against the ladder and have no problems towing. Also with the ladder out it is like a platform and easier to get into and out of the dinghy. Pull the bar off and the ladder goes down as a swim ladder.

The tow line to the dinghy goes through a carabiner at the end of the ladder and to a cleat on the side of the boat. If you want to tow with the dingy out you just let the line out and then pull it up tight to the ladder when you don't want the line or dinghy getting into the rudder or outboard. We tow with the dinghy bow lines up tight to the ladder all the time though.

I don't know if anything like this is possible for the X or M, but maybe something like it can be made.

The build is here.....

http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-17.html

c ya,

Sum

Our Trips to..

Our Mac Pages

Mac-Venture Links

[Gary N]

Jim - Those were most interesting links. I learnt a great deal from them.

Sum - Wow, you documented that really well.

Thanks both for the information.

We are thinking about planning a 100 mile round trip to stay in a cove (Watermouth Cove, North Devon, UK) and will need to anchor in the bay overnight.

[curtiss]

I tow my Aqumax inflatable at up to 20 mph behind my 26M. Here is a photo with me towing it. Maybe this will help some or at least give you some idea of what is possible.



Curtiss on LaVida

[Herschel]

I can't say about towing an inflatable dinghy, but I do have some experience towing a 10-ft dinghy of the "non-inflatable" variety (O'Day sprite for the old timers). Somewhere I found the advice to tow it so that it surfs the second wave of the wake astern. That has turned out to be sage advice because you can actually feel the tension in the tow line reduce when the dinghy hits the "sweet spot" on the face of the wave. I would assume that that means you have reduced the drag as much as possible. Of course, that means adjusting the tow line when there is a major change in speed for an extended period of time, and ...oh, yes...bring the dinghy alongside for docking. That ususally requires one pass to see which side I want to moor to.