Towing for the Yachtsmen

n the following pages, we’ll examine the fundamentals of towing a boat. Most cruisers, whether power or sail, have a dinghy. If it can’t be carried on deck, that dinghy must be towed, and towing requires a bit of care and understanding or you can end up with it swamped or capsized and lose your nice oars, life jackets, and fuel cans. On the other hand, you might also find yourself having to tow your larger boat. This might be from the dock to the mooring or perhaps from the mooring to the boatyard after an engine failure. You may also come across a fellow mariner needing a tow. Whatever the reason, this is a project that can go very badly if not done right. For one thing, in a crowded anchorage there are plenty of obstacles, some of which are very expensive, and a towed boat doesn’t always follow obediently where you lead it. A boat under tow doesn’t usually stop when you want it to either, but as with most things, a little practice before the skill is needed will help a lot. This primer on towing should get you across the harbor with a relatively small boat (say, less than 40' ). If you need to tow a longer distance, or tow a larger boat, you’ll need a good deal more than what we can provide in this space. Towing a Dinghy The basic goal of towing any boat is to get more resistance aft than forward so it will follow in a straight line. If there is more resistance forward than aft, the bow of the towed boat (we’ll just call it a dinghy here, but it would apply to any towed object) will “dig in” and cause the dinghy to take a zigzag course. That might be annoying at best, but it could become severe enough to cause the dinghy to swamp or capsize. This is why you must put a tail on a kite to stabilize it. You need drag aft. How do you get more drag aft? There are many ways, and here are some: • Any method that will lift the bow out of the water, such as attaching the towline to a fitting near the waterline and pulling the dinghy up close, thereby lifting the bow further out of the water. • Placing some weight, such as beach stones, in the stern, causing the same result (bow up, stern down). • If your dinghy has a relatively flat bottom forward and a skeg aft, it should tow fine without modification. • If you have a sailing dinghy with no skeg, you can secure the rudder amidships. (Leaving it unsecured will actually work, too, but it will work better if secured.) A sailing dinghy should have its centerboard raised; otherwise it will create drag too far forward. • The same effect can be accomplished in an outboard-powered dinghy by leaving the motor down, though it will create more drag. With the dinghy properly trimmed for towing, adjust the length of the towline so the boat is riding just up the back side of the stern wave, with the bow over the crest. If the dinghy can slide down the wave’s face, it is likely to sheer off in a direction of its choosing and pote