Interesting but I liked the earlier Maurice Griffiths technique of trailing a line off of the stern. I use a Maine fishman's technique of putting a small funnel on the towing line so that under strain the narrow part of the funnel points toward the boat doing the towing and offers little resistance when being in the water under a light strain.  With no strain the dingy will can ahead of the funnel and flip it over for maximum resistance. It actually worked rather well but I was towing my 15' 6" dory from my 15' M15.  We got into some 20+ kt winds and following sea where the dory was surfing down the waves at a far faster speed than the M15 can do.  The funnel would flip over to slow the bow down quite successfully.  Unfortunately the stern would not slow down and tried to pass the bow leading to near broaches  every time the dory took off. It may be that the little 7" diameter funnel was too large and the Griffiths 6 fathom drogue offers less resitance then the funnel.  I guess it requires a little more tuning. Thanks Doug Kelch M15, "Seas the Day" --- On Sun, 3/15/09, David C. Patterson <davidcpatterson@msn.com> wrote: From: David C. Patterson <davidcpatterson@msn.com> Subject: M_Boats: One last refinement from Maurice Griffiths on dinghy towing To: montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com Date: Sunday, March 15, 2009, 3:59 PM The dinghy-towing thread is sufficiently frayed by now, but here is one more quote from old Maurice Griffiths on dinghy towing, written almost 50 years (1979) after the prior one, based on his experiences: "It was an exhilarating run, and over the Stone Banks off Harwich the seas were a little steeper, and our dinghy started to run up on us before some of the more boisterous seas. But we had by now learnt how to cope with this bad habit of towed dinghies, and always made it a rule when starting on a coastal passage...to shackle two painters on to the dinghy's eyebolt at the foot of its stem. We now cast off one of these to trail astern as a drogue, and veered the stouter one to about six fathoms. This arrangement, we had found, was more effective in braking the dinghy's wild rush down the face of a following sea, as it allowed its stern to slew to one side or the other if it wanted to. If the drogueline is towed from the stern it is less effective as it keeps the dinghy's transom square on to the seas. Moreover, when no longer running before it, it is much easier to retrieve the drogue painter from the dinghy's stem than from its transom, while the yacht is still sailing at all fast." The First of the Tide, p. 61 So, a possible twist on the drogue technique. David _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats Remember, there is no privacy on the Internet!