Getting better with the dingy up-down on davits - 2013

End of February 2013 – Anchored in Bahia de Navidad lagoon

You can see the two straps here in an X. We will have two made from jack line soon. We are playing with the length for now. One is a sail tie.

 After some dingy davit use we are getting it down. We now only raise the dinghy with the stern (of the dingy) on the port side (of the sail boat). This makes securing it with straps easier because it fits now only one way.
 Straps keep the Achilles LSI-310E dingy from moving around in wakes or swells or higher winds. This is a good way for when the engine is mounted on the stern also. It used to be we would raise the dingy with the bow on the port so the engine weight would be on the light side of the boat, the starboard. Raising the dinghy with the motor and fuel tank and dinghy anchor and chain with rode along with the seat bag stuff was a chore. Debbie could do it but we would need to use the winch and crank it up on the engine side. A lot of cranking but it was way easier than a straight pull and that is with 6.1 Harken davit blocks. Debbie and I were talking about how to make it better and I suggested an electric winch handle I had seen advertised, saying I wish we had an electric winch. Debbie mentioned we had the electric windlass. I thought where have I been?? Yes it is an electric winch and gets little use.

  The stern windless gets used only for stern anchoring which we have done twice and I hope not to do any more than absolutely necessary because of the rode getting messed up. We sit in a place for a couple weeks and the rode gets dirty and stuff growing in it. You do not want to just dump it straight into the lazarett. So it is a pain to clean up. If it were not for our fancy stern windless set up thanks to the previous owner I think that you would use a reel you put on the stern rail would be the way to go.

You can see the snatch block here. Also the stern anchor is still ready to deploy in an emergency if needed. 

  So we put a snatch block on the stern rollers for the anchor rode for a fair lead to the Kato Marine Island Davits davit block and that was all we needed. We then just put the davit line down to the windless and off it goes pulling up the dinghy. I or Debbie can actually bring the dingy up by ourselves. We usually do not but it is easy to. Usually one has the bow davit and one the stern windless. There is no pulling on the windless, you just tail the line. This has become very easy and simple. We do this for security reasons. Lift it and lock it!

The dingy wheels are on because we are going to the beach and use them to haul up so we can change the oil on the Honda 9.9 hpoutboard. 

We are enjoying the Honda 9.9 hpoutboard as the Sands Hotel  for a dingy landing is well over a mile away from our bot where it is anchored in the Barra-Bahia de Navidad lagoon. The GrandIsla Navidad Resort is well over a half mile away so scooting along is nice. The wind often picks up in the afternoon making for a fetch and the dinghy handles well in it. When we leave often the lagoon is flat so we can open it up and fly along and have the wind in our hair! On the way back if the wind is up we still plain only we use less throttle. On some pang wakes we do slow down as we are still new to this but getting good.