Davits

[stevewitt1]

Hello Group:

I went to the Strictly Sail and am seriously thinking of a set of davits.

Does anyone have experiences with davits?
Are they worth it?
Does a dink ride better on davits than being towed?
Does towing measurably affect speed?
I have a 10# RIB
Davits are rated for 300# per

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Steve

[TonyP]

Steve

The longer the tow line the more trouble I believe one will have when towing.
If I do tow,(and inshore only) I pull the dink right up hard almost(ours is a soft bottom inflatable).
In reality it is easy to either pull up on the foredeck or deflate and stow.
Otherwise if you have bulging pockets then, by all means get some davits. Maybe the fold/swing in type when not in use.
cheers from down under in fabulous summertime.
Tony

[Fred Koehlmann]

I don't have experience with davits, but I have loads of experience with towing a dinghy. Currently we have a 10' Walker Bay with the side pontoons. The craft is light and tows incredibly well. We use a 50' poly line to ensure the line floats. Ours is also a highly visible orange in colour. I usually have it about a full boats length away when towing, and bring it in really close when we get into close quarters line an anchorage or marina. After a few years I invert the tow line (they always wear more closer to the dinghy) for another year or so, and then the line gets retired for a new one. It hasn't slowed us down much. In light air there is little resistance. You do notice more as the wind picks up, but then we are not racing and if we were, I would leave it in the marina. We have already been sailing 8+ knots with the dinghy in tow.

In my youth, our family sailed a Grampian 26 and we also towed a hard shell dinghy (8' in length). We did quite well doing so on a smaller sailboat.

I would never tow an inflatable because of the close contact they have with the water surface and the immense drag that it produces. So the Zodiac type would in my mind be a prime candidate for getting hoisted out of the water. Where a RIB would fall into the equation, I don't know. If you can keep the inflated tubes out of the water then maybe you'd be OK.

I also like the idea of being able to look back and see behind me and not have my vision obscured. That's a personal thing. We also sail on the Great Lakes, and while we can have large waves, we don't get the huge swells of the ocean. So maybe if you're off-shore it might be a good idea.

I'm sure the real experts will chime in, any time soon.

[Jim Hardesty]

Steve,
Here's another idea, Dinghy-tow.  I don't have one myself.  I did look to buy a very nice, very well equiped boat that had this system.  The owner traveled with it twice from Lake Erie to the Caribbean with a dog (2 trips a day to shore).  He had nothing but good to say about the system.  One of the big advantages that I see is leaving the engine mounted on the dinghy but lifted and well supported.  Only the bow of the dinghy is in the water.

http://www.dinghy-tow.com/

Jim

[Andrew Harvey]

Davits are also a handy place to install your solar panel(s)
Only problem I have is that you can't go for a swim until you drop the dinghy.

[Stu Jackson]

Dinghy tow:  Captain Al Watson made a home=made variety of this concept for next to no $$ years ago, try:  http://www.c34.org/projects/kindred-spirit/davits.html

A while ago someone came up with the idea of using two Garhauer motor hoists as davits.  If you have one already, then it's a pretty good $$-saving concept.

[sail4dale]

have a 10.5 ft. Achelies ? and find that it is about as easy to put it upside down on the foredeck.  Hoist it from its bow with my spin halyard
or if a full crew manhandle it aboard.  better speed and no danger of painter tangle in prop if I forget to tighten up in mooring.

[stevewitt1]

sail4dale
Maybe be the slow learner that I am is a reason I'm looking at davits.  Twice with my 31 Allmand I forgot to gather in the painter. One time is was the 15th of May with the water temp around 47.  My 2hp Yamaha on my dink towed me at .6 kts to the wall, thankfully there was zero wind at the time.

I can confess that there is a certain sound made as the engine rapidly slows to 0 rpm due to wrapping line in the prop. A sound you never forget and one I wish I never heard.  I'm also too stubborn to admit that poly line really does have a place on a boat other than a skiing tow rope.

Oh well, live and learn
Steve
visit us at www.ocontoyachtclub.com

[pablosgirl]

Hi Steve,

I will be happy to share our experience with our dingy davits.  We mave a set of the Forespar Nova davits.  These are the folding/removable type.  see linkhttp://www.forespar.com/products/boat-nova-davit-lift.shtml  We have a 9' RIB and an 8HP outboard that we cary on the davits.  

Are they worth it?  It depends on how you use your boat and dingy.  They are conveient for storing the dingy but they do obstruct the rear view.  You don't have to hoist the dingy up on the foredeck and then have to see over it while sailing.  The set we have was purchased by the previous owner and can be removed fairly easly from the boat.  The down side to that is that the davits are not that rigid and move a little back and forth in a seaway, which makes an anoying squeak.  It also gets me a little on edge because the noise sound like something is loose , it does just not sound right.  We had one occation when the quick pins worked out of the cross braces while in a preaty good seaway and it was no fun trying to realign the braces with the pin holes while it flopped back and forth.  I have been on a friend's boat which had ridged davits built into the stern pulpit and there was no movement there and his dingy road quite well.  Plus it made a great place to install the solar panels.

We store the dingy on the davits but in windy conditions we will drop the dingy and tow it or leave it behind if we do not intend to use it on that particular outing.  We have experimented with a separate floating dingy dock and this worked well when we were not using the dingy.  But it was a little more work to get the dingy off it's dock and connected to the boat.  I have not noticed any appreciable difference in boat speed between towing it or not.  I perfer to tow it in in a seaway because I find the sound of the dingy's bow wake very plesant to listen to as opposed to the sound of the davits squeaking back and forh..  We use a bright yellow polypropeline rope about 15 feet in length with snap hoks on either end(it floats and it towes well at that length).  We will sinch up the tow rop when backing the boat under power to avoid the off chance of it getting sucked into the propeller.

If I did not already  have davits and were going crusing, I would opt for a rigid setup incorporated into the stern pulpit.  

Also to avoid the $1400 to 1800 dollar investment in davits, you could store the dingy either on the foredeck or on a dingy dock and either tow the dingy for short distances or for long distance store it on the foredeck.  Like Ron says "Your boat, your choice"

Overall I find the davits very convient, I just wish that mine were the fixed variety.

[stevewitt1]

Thank You Paul:

This may sound strange but I recall years ago (yes, I'm an old fart) reading somewhere that a painter should be a boat's length in length for most towing.
Anyone else ever hear of that????

Steve

visit us at www.ocontoyachtclub.com

[kwaltersmi]

This may sound strange but I recall years ago (yes, I'm an old fart) reading somewhere that a painter should be a boat's length in length for most towing.
Anyone else ever hear of that????

I've found that adjusting the painter/towline to the conditions works best.  We try to make sure the dinghy is riding the waves in the same period (cresting when the mothership crests, etc.) as the mothership. Sometimes the waves are small with a short period. Other times the waves are larger rollers separated by a larger distance. Adjusting painter length helps give the dinghy the best ride with the least amount of friction and jerking around.

[Fred Koehlmann]

When you say having the painter the same length of the boat, I assume you mean the main boat and not the dinghy? I believe that to be too close, especially when you consider that you lose line length at both ends for tying up. To keep it riding on the crest behind you, you'll probably need more than a boats length.

I use to race Albacores, and when we went into major compitions it was required to have minimum painter of 50'. This allowed for maximum adjustment based on boat speed and weather conditions. Of course 50' is also the required length for a man overboard line, so that may have played into the logic as well.

As it is, our painter is 50' of poly line and I never have had it all the way out. I like to keep the end bowlined to the boat and have some free line to adjust and tie off to my stern cleat. We' ve never had a problem running over the line or getting it fouled, since it's floating on the surface.

[Terry Forshier]

I have davits on my boat. They are great for hauling the dinghy. I have had a bauer 8', a walker bay with tubes and now an avon air 10. All ride great on them. I can easily see over the boat. Much less drag, much less. Especially motoring in the IC no towed boat to watch and a knot more speed at least.
Only problem is my 1988 has a reverse transom and hauling the ding up over the first 2 feet is tough. After that it is easy.

[Ken Juul]

Have them, love them.  So much easier than towing or putting on the fore deck.  Garhauer are by far the best I've seen.  Sturdy, braces for the railings provided.  Heard horror stories about marina's adding them to the boat length.  So far have not run into that in the last 1200 miles.

[lazybone]

Have them, love them.  So much easier than towing or putting on the fore deck.  Garhauer are by far the best I've seen.  Sturdy, braces for the railings provided.  Heard horror stories about marina's adding them to the boat length.  So far have not run into that in the last 1200 miles.

For land/winter storage our marina charges for total length including Davits, anchors, solar panels, etc.
In water, you have to fit in your slip.
Middle River, Chesapeake bay