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Anyone keep an old tire aboard for tow-assist/fender/sea-anchor duty?

5236 Views 23 Replies 13 Participants Last post by pdqaltair, Mar 24, 2015

souljour2000

Discussion Starter · Mar 22, 2015 (Edited)

Recently dinghied out an old fatused car tire from my g/f's car trunk to my convalescent Columbia 40 at moor...a nice fat 235 /R17 ...
I have hauled one aboard before...on my old C-29....briefly...for a trip up to Cedar keys...now that I got the C-40 awhile back, there's more room for selective additions like this...It's mostly a love of the rustic and and quaint side of nauticalia that drives me to do things like this...suppose.....but there seems to also be a faint but genuine impulse of practicality that may supply this urge from time to time...Btw..I know they leave a nice black rubber residue on most things...but I'd rather save my good cone-shaped orange sea anchor for dedicated sea-anchor duty..not for multi-purpose work...like towing stability and for when u just need one more fender when "rafting up".

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krisscross

· #21 · Mar 23, 2015

I found that the easiest way to cut a drainage hole in a tire is to use a punch made of galvanized pipe with a sharpened edge.
Grind down the edge on the pipe to a sharp angle, place the tire on a solid piece of wood (like a stump), set the pipe punch on the inside of the tire, give it 2-3 sharp blows with a hammer, and you have a large hole that will keep draining the water no matter what junk gets in it.

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RobGallagher

· #22 · Mar 23, 2015

Times gone by when folks got caught out in a storm, they tied anything they could to a line and through it over in an attempt keep them from being dead.

They lived, so, obviously whatever they did saved them.

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hpeer

· #23 · Mar 24, 2015

I don't carry tires, but I do carry some inner tubes. The one time I really could have used them I (being somewhat sloshed and considerably brain dead) forgot I had them.

None the less I think they have utility for various situations. And they stow pretty well.

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pdqaltair

· #24 · Mar 24, 2015 (Edited)

RobGallagher said:
Times gone by when folks got caught out in a storm, they tied anything they could to a line and through it over in an attempt keep them from being dead.

They lived, so, obviously whatever they did saved them.

This is a common logical fallacy:

a. They didn't all live. In fact we have little idea how many did not.

b. We don't know that it really helped. Perhaps they would have been fine. Perhaps it even made it worse and they lived anyway. It's rather like anchoring anecdotes.

c. Boat designed were very different. That is still true today; the right answer for heavy full keel boat and a light catamaran are barely even related.

I don't think we can draw anything useful from this approach.

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My other guess, like MOB drills, is that unless you have experimented with it moderately bad weather, it's not going to work for you. I've used drogues in light gale conditions, and your system will almost certainly require some tinkering. Just sayin'. In a real storm, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure a very large amount of line will be needed for most systems.

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