Let’s face it, managing a dinghy can be a pain in the transom. Here’s a common example. On a southbound trip home one year, crossing the Gulf of Maine on my friend’s boat, the sea was flat calm in fine weather. We had a brand-new console RIB, which was quite expensive and too big to stow on deck, so we towed it. Suddenly, one of the kids yelled, “Where’s the dinghy?” Thankfully, after retracing our track on the reciprocal and doing an exacting search pattern for three hours with all eyes glued to the horizon, we recovered it.
Others have not been so fortunate,