Pulling the boat with the tender. How many have done so? Not many, for sure. Even if the tender is perfect for towing a motorboat, if necessary. In case of engine failures, for example. But not necessarily in the way that everyone does it habitually. There is a better system than the one commonly used. A towing method that offers advantages in terms of manoeuvrability, space requirements and safety.
To tow the boat with the tender, few do it correctly
To begin with, let’s say that the lack of practice in the knowledge of the specific manoeuvre is understandable. Rarely is the tender used to tow mothership. For most normal boat users, getting on it when you are in the roadstead to go from board to land is the only relationship you have with the tender. In fact the service boat is useful to many other things. From giving a second anchor, to the… towing the boat with the tender, precisely.
To tow a boat with a tender, the most convenient method is to pull it over the side, in the rear half. With the bow of the dinghy more or less in the middle of the boat. It must then be fixed with three lines. Two of them start from the bow and go towards the boat: one towards the bow bollard, the other towards the stern bollard, as you can see in the figure.
In this way, the two hulls become one. A much more compact configuration than having the pram pulling at least one boat forward. Imagine in which scenario, between the two possibilities mentioned above, you would prefer to find yourself if you were to tow a boat into a port. The maneuverability of the tight package is much better than that of the classic trailer. There is also a structural advantage, which makes you prefer the trailer option presented here. If the boat pulled the boat from the bow, it could either over-engage or force the stern platform, having to relieve tension at one end.
It’s a horsepower matter…
Once fixed the dinghy, then, to tow the boat with the tender (and excuse the repetition, but Google forces us to do such things, to put you in a position to read useful information like this) Once fixed, it was said, there are no particular tips. If not to have a sufficiently powerful outboard engine. Or have adequate time to wait for it to reach its destination very slowly.
