Glenn,

First, I'm assuming you are serious, and not just trolling.

These comments come from having owned a 16' open bow with an outboard
like you are describing (now own a 21' I/O), and also having sailed
offshore in moderate (12-18Kt winds, 2'-5' waves) and moderate+ (18-
28 kt winds, 6'-12' waves) conditions.

I don't think that the drag from the boat will be the problem. We
tow our 21' I/O with our 27' sailboat during the summer and it doesn't
slow us down that much. At 4-6 Kts sailing speed, the drag from the
tow isn't that much.

A bigger problem is that you are likely to be shipping water over the
bow of the towed boat in anything except benign conditions resulting
in a swamped power boat and dramatically increased drag ;-)

We had our 16' on San Luis reservoir one time in windy conditions. The
waves were probably 2'-3' on the nose. After the first time the bow
went down into a trough and the next wave came (partially) into the boat
we said "enough of this" and headed in. Those waves were small compared
to what we've seen off shore. The tow rope would likely make it even
worse by holding the bow down as the power boat tried to come up the
face of a wave.

OTOH, if you had a good bilge pump, battery, solar charger etc., _and_
a custom fit heavy duty cover that was mostly waterproof and real well
attached (with snaps) to the boat you might could do it. I wonder if
you'd have to pay double (for two boats) at check-in time? Sure would
be nice to have the powerboat down there with you to get around in.

My opinions,

Don W.



John Glynn wrote:
Okay...so I have a crazy question for y'all. Please be patient with
me...just want some of your experience/wisdom.

I have been using a 12' Portabote for my dingy & thought it's not perfect, I
like it. I just had an idea. I have an older 15.5' family 'speed-boat' of
'70's vintage. It has a 70HP outboard, convertable top etc.

We are considering sailing from the Florida Keys towards Mexico and then
cruising south to Guattemalla. Had the idea of (in addition to the
Portabote) towing the 15.5' boat along. I thought that it would be great to
load my wife and kids into a larger faster boat to be able to explore
further afield from our chosen anchorage. No, I am not one of the folks
that roars through anchorages rocking everyone's home...done my share of
screaming at those (given up on that now). Just thinking it would be sure
handy.

It will significantly slow us down our 41' Gulfstar , I know. I thought I
would put the convertible top on it to prevent the collection of rainwater
and install a couple large bilge-pumps and solar-panel to keep batter topped
up.

Please forward your honest comments and experiences...no flames please.

Thanks! :-)

Glenn.
s/v Seawing
www.seawing.net