Sailing on a boat with big waves

Bring the dingy on board!

Hi Jim. I'm impressed (And encouraged) by your resolve to post this footage, knowing that the armchair admirals will chip in relentlessly with snide comments. Towing a dinghy in large following seas is always a high risk activity. The shock load could well cause the painter (Tow-line) or the attachment points on the dinghy to fail. If you have no alternative (Not enough deck space to hoist the dinghy aboard?), for what it's worth, may I suggest using a dinghy painter that has a very large amount of stretch (e.g. a polyester three-strand line) and is quite long (Say three times the length of the yacht) and think about attaching a small, heavy object on the painter around half way along, say a few 3lb dive weights) so as to introduce a catenary (sag) in the line to help reduce the shock loading. Also lash or lock the outboard in the down position and if possible lash the outboard tiller amidships so the dinghy steers a straight course and the outboard cannot swing side to side. If you can engage the gears so that the propellor doesn't rotate, the extra drag will also help reduce the dinghys tendency to surf past your yacht. Outboard mechanics will say that this is not good for the outboard (Particularly the gearbox) but it is not as bad as losing the whole dinghy due to a parted painter, or attachment points being ripped off... The drag from this set-up will cost you some boat-speed, but same story - you hopefully won't lose the dinghy... In summary, anything you can do to reduce the dinghies surfing and sudden snatching on the painter will lessen the chances of losing the dinghy!
Also, steering a slightly higher course (i.e. closer to the wind), will hopefully smooth out the boat speed (Increasing your lowest speeds spent in the troughs and decreasing the highest speeds of your occasion surfing down swells) and hopefully reduce the chances of a Chinese (Accidental) gybe. Hope this helps. You're absolutely right when you say that everyone makes mistakes, but what sorts the wheat from the chaff is that intelligent sailors will learn valuable lessons from those mistakes, whilst ignorant sailors will keep repeating them again and again. (Ignorance after all, is simply choosing not to learn something despite the availability of the lesson!)
Cheers, Mike

Kind of rookie stuff there I'm sure you've learned from then you take your motor off and snob up the dink to where it's almost touching the stern. I learned my lesson of the coast of rhode island in a tropical depression it was the fastest I ever went with my dink upside down 3 feet under the water...

Thanks for the informative video. It is not always necessary to bring the dink aboard but you remind me how important it can be to get the outboard in long before you need to! Good sailing. "Peter Paris of Germany" is dangerously misled about his 'preventers.' You wouldn't even think of rigging a preventer in this case - in fact - in almost any case. He's also wrong about bringing the dink up unless it's onto the boat, but it's his "preventer" advice that would have you lose a shroud, and the rig. Good work Jim - sail with you any day. You can always tell the landlubbers because they're the know-it-alls... That goes for parenting as well as sailing! You can always tell the single guys by how they tell you how to be a father! LOL

Made all these mistakes! That's how you learn! Also plenty world cruisers have baby's on board! Besides seas were OK! I too get sick of these bitter judgemental guys who think they know it all and have forgotten what it was like to learn! There the morons

Love the spirit of this video. Mistakes were made but all is well that ends well. Those with the negative comments should perhaps remember when they started out.

You did fine. Lessons learned. People below are being way to harsh.

A boom gybe preventer/ bowline needs to be rigged in addition to keep the boom in position. Very dangerous to sail without a preventer tackle arrangement! Then of course I strongly recommend to heave the dinghy up to the stern. This is better than let it following the vessel and to wait for the seconds of surfing the waves followed by situations we have seen: The light weight dinghy is faster than the vessel and sails side by side to the vessel surfing down the waves. A serious beginner fault and after some hours usually the towrope breaks and one will loose the dinghy for sure. I am sure there are some comments critisizing this faults. But looking at this video is really spine-crawling! Hope some people read this and learn how to make it better!

Iv been in as rough seas in a 24 footer

Do you think it's cute bringing a helpless baby out on angry water? Wise up.

people who aren't sailors should stay away from the sea

We sailed with a square sail in waves a bit bigger than this. Also in a boat that is under 15m.

i love your little dog

I think it was not a good idea to have a little child on board!

I lost a dinghy doing that the waves where so huge I couldn't turn back to get it I had to watch it float off !

One has to get out in it to apprechiate being -in out of it!

2 things. There was a time in the video when the Dinghy should have been hauled in right up to the stern/transom with it bow OUT of the water-and rthis has always served me well not only in sailing -but in life in general -"The time to reef, is when you first think about it!   happy sailing!

Training should be made compulsory before allowing anyone to take a boat to sea, the lack of basic seamanship shown here is astounding. You need to do your learning in a classroom before putting yourself in danger like that! 

nice video but it would be better to stow the dinghy aboard to avoid friction not to reduce the speed of the boat..