Pulling with my inflatable.

[Chopperbill]

Wife likes to kayak down the CO river. When she gets to her destination she calls me and I would hop in the pick up and go get her. Now with my boat I thought I could just tow her back up the river. River is slow. How can I do it safely?

 

[ronaldj]

Just get a tow rope and take it slow. You may find that you can take more trips with your wife. Kayaks and Inflatables can pretty much go to the same places. You inflatable just won't be able to run wot.

 

[fbpooler]

Towing a kayak can get hairy. We hold the kayak on the side of the inflatable with the paddler holding on in front of the motor operator and keep the speed low. That has worked well for us.

 

[Chopperbill]

What would you hook a tie rope to?

 

[JohnnyRudeClassics]

kayaks are not designed to be towed
so towing at a pace faster than another paddler would go is sketchy at best
also keep in mind other than river play kayaks
most kayaks do not have planing hulls
and you definitely do not want the kayak to nose dive under the water

with that said
I've towed kayaks 4 or 5 miles at times in order to allow paddlers to go further out
and it took forever because I never exceeded displacement speed
nonetheless, it was about twice as fast as they would have paddled out
and they were not already tired at the point I dropped them off

I've towed with my inflatable using the rear carry handles,
set up in kind of the reverse of how you are supposed to tow an inflatable,
with a slip bridle. A float at the slip ring will help keep you line out of the prop.

my transom launch wheels struts and attachment are probably strong enough
to tow off of, but i have yet to try towing anything off of them

good luck and let us know what ends up working for you

 

[Chopperbill]

Thanks, won't go far and speed is not a factor. Most of the time she is with a group and we take pickups to fetch em. We have a friend on the California side of the river 2-3 miles a way and that would gives a good way to visit. Otherwise we have to travel about 20 miles across the damn.

 

[ronaldj]

You will actually need very little throttle if any. We were in the Upper Potomac river Sunday with a bunch of kayaks. In fact there were about 5 kayaks for every hard sided boat. There was one kaboat and our 2 sibs. I did not use throttle all day and always pulled away from them. I did not want to get very close to them because I didn't want them to have to paddle through my wake

 

[Chopperbill]

Not much for wakes on week days. Weekend and holidays bring out the big boys. Twin and triple inboards doing close to a hundred keeps us on the shore as spectators.

 

[Guest]

I towed multiple sibs already due to outboard failure and both times i tied it to my launch wheels. I do not think i will do this again because I get scared that the transom is not made to support towing. As my transom is already at the weight limit allowed. I don't know. Then again your 9.8 only weights about 84lb. If you haveva 365 your max ob weight is about 120lb so if its less then 40lb of thrust you should be fine tieing to transom

 

[fbpooler]

A kayak at over about 3 MPH is like riding on top of a rail and requires extreme balance by the paddler. Also, it is harder to balance when you are not powering yourself with the paddle acting as a balance pole.

If an anchor trolley is fitted to a kayak, you have a built in tow rope provided the front pulley is close to the bow.

 

[Chopperbill]

The kayak is what I believe they call an ocean kayak. A cathedral bottom, kinda like catamaran style. Very stable in rougher water.

 

[JohnnyRudeClassics]

@weimed
towing off of the transom should be the easiest overall on the boat,
after all the towing forces ultimately transfer between the motor
and the hull via the transom

I would not do it,
but as it is ultimately the motor that is doing the towing
if you could hook the towline up to the motor itself,
as far as strain on the hull is concerned,
the towing directly off of the motor would be the best.

 

[Chopperbill]

Wife would hop in the boat. Kayak would be empty. Should pull easy. How would that work?

 

[fbpooler]

With a cathedral hull, the kayak should tow well. Most kayaks have veed or rounded bottoms and roll over readily with no weight in them. As long as you go reasonably slow, it will not affect your transom. It only takes a few pounds of force in the tow rope to tow a kayak.