[Joe Henderson]

Dear Roy,

Both Ian and Andrew make very good points and their advice is sound, chafe will be your biggest problem.

My only reservation is about securing to the mast. In the old days a solid timber mast in a very thick deck was the idal place to secure a tow.

With ever lighter scantlings I worry about the ability of a modern boat to take these sorts of loads. The average fishing boat or commercial vessel will just put the thriottles to the firewall and go and the devil take the poor yacht on the end of the string.

I seem to remember a carbon mast and deck being badly damaged a few years ago by several turns of spectra line crushing it during a tow in admittedly very rough weather.

I remember a forestay being carried away by an usecured towline that jumped out of the inadequate bow roller fitted to most stock cruising boats and putting such a load on the forestay as the unattended vessel sheered about in the wake of the tow boat that it brought the rig down. They then had the added problem of a rig over the side, allowing not much progress to be made and in the end they had to cut the boat loose.

Due to the aforementioned and the sad inadequacy of stock cleats and fairleads on the majority of new boats , I would prefer to take twin lines with long soft eyes looped over both primary winches, to avoid over loading the pawls, forward through the genoa cars ,which are slid as far forward on their tracks as possible, then lashed to the forward mooring cleats/cleat then seized together or spliced together and out through a meaty fairlead. This does not neccesarily have to be on the centre line, close will do. Arrange chafing gear as required. Heavy hose if it will fit or thick chrome tanned leather if space is at a premium.
This arrangement feeds loads into the winches etc in the right direction.

You could maybe take a soft or webbing sling under the bow to hold the towline down.

In any case try it all in light conditions first.

Regards,
Joe Henderson.