Towing a RIB

[Island Time 1,246]

I just wrote this for another site, and thought some of you may find it interesting;

 

If the dingy is well made the primary bow eye is meant for towing. Use that as the main attachment point, and from the painter a meter or so out from the bow, a bridle to the two D's on the tubes - so you have 3 attachment points. When the bridle is properly tensioned, it will ensure the dingy tows straight. 

Make the painter long - 10m or more. To shorten it, tie it in a sennit. This allows it to be used short, and unraveled quickly and easily if you need a longer painter.

 

Use a decent piece of braided, cored sailing line for the painter. Pull out say 2m of core at the free end, remove the core, and sew in some heavy bungy - about 1M, then use the removed core for the final 1M again. Pull the cover back over new core. Splice on a safety harness double action clip to the end - it allows you to clip on to anything, a round turn and back to itself on a heavy bollard etc. NEVER comes off, no matter who ties up the dingy!

We have towed our 3m RIB, with the 15HP on it, at over 20 knots (Behind a launch), and in some pretty rough seas behind the yacht. It tows really well set up like this, even moderately rough conditions. Leave the bung out so it can drain, and have it, as mentioned above, quite a long way behind - certainly in your wake behind the rooster tail!! We do lift it all aboard for Ocean passages, or in any conditions that might have breaking seas....

 

Might work for other dingys as well, but my experience is mostly with RIBs....