In article 6c3c08af-c7e3-45d4-99a9-6bb9c414c5ee@
28g2000yqu.googlegroups.com, says...

On Jun 14, 12:31*pm, Harryk wrote:
On 6/14/11 11:53 AM, Frogwatch wrote:



On Jun 14, 10:42 am, *wrote:
In article17128384-3f79-4202-bded-978f41fe1d32
@i4g2000yqg.googlegroups.com, says...

On Jun 13, 11:39 pm,
wrote:
In ,
says...

On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:56:00 -0500, Richard Casady
*wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:18:09 -0400, Marc Auslander
*wrote:

I suspect you're not going to sea, but doing coastal cruising. *I've
towed my hard dink through pretty wild coastal weather - and
never got into trouble. *A long painter prevents it from riding up
your stern.

Long painters are a mistake if you have a motor. In that case the
painter should stop short of the propeller. You can use a long tow
line with it.

In big seas a long tow line is absolutely necessary. *Frankly I don't
understand your distinction between a tow line and a painter unless
you are referring to the painter as the line used for everyday tie up,
as opposed to long distance towing. *Best solution for a painter is
floating line like polypro (miserable as it is for other reasons), or
to install some small floats at regular intervals. *All this of course
is to prevent the painter from getting sucked into the props
accidently.

Well, for protected water I always made the painter about a foot too
short to hit the prop... If I needed more length, I would bend on
another line.

--
Team Rowdy Mouse, Banned from the Mall for life!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Duh!
That's the norm to keep a boat's own painter out of it's 'OWN'
propellor.
When towing you'd have to have the dinghy right up againt the mother
boat's stern to avoid that problem and then you create others... such
as the dinghy ramming the mother boat.

Why aren't you over at Harry's new fantastic group?

My experiences towing dinghies have been uniformly bad or comical
depending on your perspective. *How many inconvenient or dangerous
places can you have your dinghy come loose? *It is always something
bizarre too like a carabiner breaking or the rope breaks because the
dinghy fills with water and you are trying to pull a 2000' drag. *My
old Nautilus dinghy was a true escape artist; no matter how well I'd
tie her up for the night, sure enough she'd have gone wandering during
the night and be on the other side of the harbor. *It was so bad that
the first thing I'd do when I got up would be to grab the binocs
before I went outside so I could scan the harbor to spot the wayward
dinghy. *If I tied her too securely, she'd take revenge by petulently
ramming the main boat all night keeping us awake. *Instead of "Honey,
will you go let the dog out", it'd be, "Honey, can you go loosen the
dinghy" and sure enough she'd be gone in the morning. *My tendency to
take my sailboat in very shallow places she shouldn't go stems from
chasing down that damned Nautilus dinghy. *Once I tried to take
advantage of her wandering by filling her with several days of trash
hoping she'd wander away with it, no luck.

I never liked towing a dink, but I don't recall one coming loose on its
own. I sort of remember the tow line spliced onto an eye ring at the bow
on my Dyer dink.

--
Want to discuss recreational boating and fishing in a forum where
personal insults are not allowed?

http://groups.google.com/group/rec-boating-fishing

If I ever run out of other things to do I'll make an ultra-lightweight
collapsible dinghy that will go into a large duffle. BTW, an 8'
dinghy is simply too small for 3 people.

I have an old kayak that is collapsible. It is made of tubular aluminum
and it stretches around a frame that breaks down to two backpacks with
the skin in one and frame in the other. It could be done pretty simply I
would guess to make a 15 footer by making it all of 8 foot panels for
sides, and 6 foot for the thwart, say 5 feet for the transom. The
biggest issue is the floor. I might break down and have a roll out type
floor that holds the thing together.. Interesting, I don't think it
would be all that hard to make, a bit of guesswork and figuring involved
but it could be done easily with some thought I would guess...

--
Team Rowdy Mouse, Banned from the Mall for life!