I rigged my towline up from a suggestion I received earlier. There are
actually two lines, both three straid laid nylon. I used this for the shock
absorbing characteristics. The first line is about 50', and has a thimble
spliced into both ends. One gets shackled to the dink. Then I have another
line with an eye spliced into one end. I hook this onto my cleat/hawsepipe
on the starboard side, pass the line through the thimble of the tow rope,
then pass it through the cleat/hawsepipe on the port side. This allows me to
adjust the length of the entire assembly to get the dink to where it wants
to run based on the wake and bow wave ( I have a trawler that runs around 7
knots). If I need to cinch it up for docking or whatever, I just pull in the
bitter end of the cleat line until the towline is reachable, then grab it
and pull it up close and cleat it off.

Another suggestion that I haven't done yet is to make a towline that splits
into two, with eyes spliced into two ends to pass over the tubes at the reat
of the dink, then forward to attach to the towline, or spliced together. The
idea behind this is to prevent a towing eye from pulling out of the dink and
losing it.

--


Keith
__
A pessimist's blood type is always b-negative.
"rhys" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 12 May 2004 17:31:21 -0400, Rodney Myrvaagnes
wrote:



Yes, that is why I said "less likely." I have seen dinghy painters
with a series of floats, that might make it "even less likely."
However, hauling the dinghy up short against the stern before going in
reverse is still a great idea.

I have a rough idea of the distance between my prop and the tender's
D-ring in a straight line, and a tad shorter than that is my standard
"deployment".

If it's choppy, I let off 20 feet or so. If it's light air in a
current, you can sometimes have under sail the slightly humiliating
vista of seeing your tender passing your sailboat. This is your cue to
switch on the motor or retire below for "recreation".

BTW, the fender as shock absorber idea is great. That's why I love NGs
like this...someone's solved problems you've yet to consider or
discover.

R.