freedomboatworks

Looking at a 42' Renaissance Prowler as a tender for a motor yacht, but am concerned about how they tow in rough seas at 12-15 Knots. I have heard that beam or following seas can be a problem. Does anyone have experience? Thanks

Ahowle

rbhankins001

We just crane ours onto the bow.

Why overthink it?

jbdba01

We had the helo pad reinforced and then use davits. Takes the crew a bit of time to get her up there, but I'm normally having a cup of Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon watching the whole thing. "Good job. Can one of you now make me a sammich?"

yhsesq

no dont tow anything with an open bow non self draining layout behind anything else which is larger. look for a pilothouse cat or something which can accommodate waves coming over the side without capsizing.
Something like this is custom built for being towed and has positive flotation. https://www.lifeproofboats.com/yachtline

combi_40

not so sure... this gentleman was towing an open CC.

zenm

I tried to get an answer on this earlier this year without much luck. Towing a mono CC is common and there are multiple companies (in South FL) that manufacture the specific cables and gear you need. They can educate you on best practices and make sure both the towed and lead vessel are reinforced in the proper areas to handle the load.

The answers I got regarding towing a cat ranged from "no way" to "yes but it depends". The concerns were centered around how they track and getting turned sideways in a following sea. You also need a toweye installed on each sponson. I spoke to a few manufacturers, the 2 that stand out were World Cat and Renaissance. World Cat was helpful, sent a picture of one being towed and offered to put me in touch with captains who have done it. The Renaissance CEO told me he'd done it several times and knew owners who had done it, but he didn't have specific details as to how it had worked out. The few captains I spoke with who had done it were against towing them, said they were constantly worried about sea state even more than usual and the cats behaved weird. I believe "wobbled" was how two described it. I've encountered a few Freemans in the Bahamas serving as fishing tenders and all were run over in tandem by crew from the sportfish, not towed.

It was hard for me to determine if there are legitimate reasons to be hesitant or if it was more lack of experience. In the end, our plans changed and we are looking at towing something smaller or not at all. I didn't want to make an already challenging and potentially dangerous exercise more difficult. If behind a large crewed vessel, the solution is probably tow when weather/seastate cooperates and run in tandem if not.

Rod27

yhsesq

All it will take is one wave enough to upset the balance enough to overcome freeboard and the towing yachts momentum will fill and sink that CC in 30 seconds.
dont forget these things are towed for potentially dozens of hours with no one watching them. its not like you can cut the outboard power enough to let it self right/clear itself thru the bilge pumps if you ingest a wave over the bow or sides. there is literally no one on board to monitor the CC.
its the equivalent of setting it adrift in the middle of the ocean with the autopilot set to 15 knots in a straight line and no one on board.

Kirby349

Or just hire a licenced Capt. To drive the 42 ....I might know a guy .

fijon

bridle ???

ychtcptn

I did some research on this as we were thinking of doing the same thing with a 40’ Cat.
I talked with a friend that tows a 38 behind a 100’ MY, and says it tows fine. The big sport fish towing a freeman says all good.
All my research says go for it.
we presently tow. 39’ Venture behind a large motor yacht, and I have been towing for years, can be a pain but it is great to have so the positives outweigh the negatives.

ychtcptn

Basically you have no idea what you are talking about!

Gun smoke

I was involved in towing a large commercial cat behind an ocean going tug. Same principle kind of applied, just scaled up. The cat being towed had a service speed of 28kn and was 60 odd ft long IIR correctly.

We towed it west to east in the southern Ocean, waited for a rare winter weather window and left with a 4-5m ground swell and light air with about 24hr window to run 20 hours to the first lea shore. Needless to say we hit tide, slowed us significantly and our calc speed proved to be about 20% opptomistic and we got smashed. 40kn of westerly turned the following sea to 4-5 swell with a couple of meters of chop on top. Freaken nasty.

Anyway, I digress. Sea trials had shown a bridle of around 10-15 % of the boats length, with a warp 10x the boats length with a springer of some 250kg towed that sucker at 8k.in horrid Big following breaking seas straight and without incident.

Now I'm not talking light weight planing hulls built like a box of tissues, but the same applies. Big bridle, spring weight mid warp with nylon tow warp of suitable diameter. The tow set up needs to be "elastic" and positively sprung to ensure constant and unrelenting pull on the towed boats hull. The bridle across the beam assists further eliminating broach.

Some how I don't think a white boats going to tow a tender freeman in steep tall waves on a significant groundswell, but you never know lol.

A drouge behind the towed hull also helps a lot.

20biminitwist

I have a buddy who tows a 34 freeman behind a 63 Bayliss. He had a special harness made and towed the Boat from St Pete to San Sal Bahamas last year. He said it towed fine and was only burning 10 more gallon an hour at cruise speed of 28 knts. Obviously you would have to have the proper sea state and set up to do this at that speed.

I believe he said the harness was some kind of Kevlar reinforced strap.

FlyingTexan

Frank James

stuffed the bow . gotta keep it up high . open bow boats soak up water like a soup ladle . a good driver would have been fine .

catfoiler

I personally don't allow my 25' cat to be towed behind a large ocean going vessel.

Bullshipper

I would think that cable weight would cause more bow steer on the cat than a mono.

A seatrail using the two specific hulls would be beneficial, but I doubt if the OEM has one laying around with a reinforced tow eye to test.

Kiwi Mike

124'delta Murphys law has been towing a 30ft world cat around for years and years.
There is a large invincible cat being towed around by a yacht that I saw in the Exumas a few months ago. I am sure a quick question on one of the yacht crew facebook pages would put you in touch with the captain or mate of that boat.
Many of the people commenting above have absolutely no idea about towing.