23' Venture vs. 32' Bayliner

In all seriousness I'm sure it was a sight to see. On our way back to the Port of Everett from Friday Harbor during the wife and my first "cruise" so to speak we were waived at by a crew on the Bayliner off the westside of Camano. He was dead in the water, engines, batteries and the likes. Radio was dead and had no signaling gear. Must have watched 3-4 boats pass him by and how they were trying to flag us down was not effective. Took and 5-6 takes to finally decide to slow down and head his way. They were adrift about 50-75 yards offshore heading north towards a sandbar. No sense of urgency and not prepared (and I am by no means experienced). It was a family of 5 with 2 young children oblivious to what was going on. We gave them a short tow to a mooring buoy and tied them off and radioed the CG. They were from E. WA, just bought the beast (1978 32' Bayliner). Cell phone with contacts left ashore and never thought to call anybody or even 911 from the wife's.

CG asked if we would be wiling to tow them to the nearest pier. Growing up on Camano I knew we were maybe 1-2 miles south of the Camano Island Yacht Club and they have a private dock so we agreed to do so and update the CG by cell as we went. I was a bit hesitant with evening creeping in, still 25 miles from port, being outweighed 3:1 by his boat and only having a deck cleat to tie off on. If it weren't for the 2 young children on board, probably would have left him on the mooring buoy. I was impressed at the little C-Dory and Yamaha 60's. Without stressing the engines and hardware, we tugged along at about 2-3 knots up to the Yacht Club, maneuvered into position, slung them around, brought them to the pier, tied them off and got back underway.

Kicked the Venture up to 4700 rpms on a glass sea, bow up rocking 30-32mph via gps (burning 6.5-7gph btw) and we were in Everett in no time!

Talk about gaining some experience your first real season on the water.
 
Good for you in helping out! I have towed others to a safe place myself where they could set anchor and given them a ride to port. As long as you are able to go really slow, you can pull big stuff around with relative ease.
 
Good on you for helping out a fellow boater. From the picture, it would appear that you are towing off of one cleat on the starboard side and that the tow was relatively close to you. If you have the opportunity to help someone out again, it's a good bit better and safer for you if you can make a tow "bridle" that is attached to both your rear cleats. It's also a bit better to tow the boat a couple of boat lengths behind - especially in rough water (which it appears was not the case this weekend).

I don't have a pre-made line specifically as a tow bridle. Rather, when I have towed others, I make a bridle up with materials on hand. I always have two 50' lengths of 3 strand for locking through the big locks in Seattle. One of those makes a good tow line. If you have a small fender, attach is adjacent to the loop in the two line (this floatation will help keep the line out of the water). I run the eyelet of the tow line over a line that's about 25' long. I tie each end of that to the stern cleats to make the bridle. The tow line can slide a little left to right on the bridle.

The advantage of the bridle is that the force is evenly distributed on the stern of your boat so should something go wrong on the tow (like it gets sideways or takes on water), it does pull a corner of your stern under with it. Also keep a knife handy in case you need to cut the other boat loose. None of the above is a big concern at slow speed in calm waters but it can make a big difference in less than ideal conditions.
 
I keep a lot of extra rope on the boat, you just never know.

This 4day week in pt defiance I saw two interesting situations. a 41ft cabin cruiser taking on water (over 12") he buzzed right by me and I heard him talking to CG otherwise I would have offered to help but it was obviously under control and his dingy was the size of my boat...

then I saw the Vessel Assist Seattle guys towing a boat in to pt defiance yesterday. however they didn't tow him behind, they tied up side by side and it was more of an 'escort'. I thought that was interesting.

Nice job with the helping hand.
:thup
 
Good on saving the folks on the bay liner! Roger is correct that this is a safety issue. I have seen deck hardware come thru the deck because of in-adequate backing (could be your boat or the Bayliner.

I am not sure about your boat--but many of the C Dory line do have towing eyes on the transom. It is best if they are backed with an alumnium plate or at least fender washers. A bridle as Roger suggets is much safer.

Also no one should be on the deck or any place where a cleat or line might hit them. We were towing a Cal 36 at about 5 knots and the fore deck cleat came tight out of the deck--went over the cabin of our boat (a 45 foot racing sloop). This was probably extra force as a swell caught the two boats out of sync. If anyone had been in the "Line of fire", they would have been seriously injured.

The side tow is most likely "towing on the hip" this is usually used in areas where there is necessity to maneuver the boat being towed. Generally you want the engine/runner about 1/3 of the length= of your boat aft of the boat you are towing. This gives you better maneuverability.
Keep up the good work!
 
Bob, that makes sense. they pulled him all the way into Pt Defiance and docked him very nicely. better than many people can dock a single boat.
 
Last July 1 during the boat parade in Port Dover a boat about the size of that Bayliner lost reverse gear while holding station. Luckily the wind pushed him to the safe side of the river where spectators could grab his lines. A Zodiac came along and tied him to hip as Bob described. I was quite impressed as the Zodiac turned him around and towed him up the river to his dock. Made it look easy!!

If your towing a heavy boat in rough water and don't trust your cleats - the bridle can be run forward through the bow eye - this puts the stress on the hull instead of just the cleats.

Regards, Rob
 
If you have to push a really large boat with an inflatable, the best way is to use the inflatable as a "Pusher" against the stern, with lines to each side This is the way that tugs push large string of barges. We lost the transmission in the Caribbean on our 62 foot motor sailor and I used this technique to maneuver the boat for a month until we got parts to rebuild the transmission.

Any single engine boat either towing or pushing will have a certain torque effect of the prop (pushing the towing boat to one side) until you get the boat being towed moving.
 
It was good to lend a hand and a learning experience for sure. Back in my climbing days, anchor equalization was beat into me pretty good. Given we have no towing eyes and with limited materials on hand, we did what we could. Lucky the conditions were so mellow. Biggest thing coming away from it was to keep more JIC gear on board and being thankful for outboards you can emergency pull start! Glad it ended without incident for them.

Thanks for the input and bridle suggestions, will add some components to the kit. The cleats are backed with washers but when I go to redo them, plan is to back them with a plate.
 
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