Our Florida Painter--how to lock a dinghy

Ok, before anyone gets all upset over this, WE ARE FLORIDA RESIDENTS. The simple truth is that as we've cruised between Maine and the Bahamas, Florida is the only place we have ever been advised to lock our dinghy. Hence why we call this our "Florida Painter." Once we hit some spots in the Caribbean this setup will see more use, but for now, that's what we call it! It's not at every dock (and it's not just docks in Florida!), but reviews of various dinghy docks will let you know which ones are susceptible to theft.

Dinghy locks can get a little controversial in the cruising community for one simple reason--do it wrong and you screw over other boaters! Yep, it's all about courtesy. Crazy, right?

In general, just tying up a dinghy should be simple. You tie off with a cleat hitch with a sufficiently long painter so that other boaters can maneuver your dinghy tie up at a crowded dock. You don't need 12 wraps on the cleat to be secure--just a simple hitch does the job and allows another boat to cleat off on top of you if needed. And with the long painter (one boat length after you're tied off) other boats can scoot around you and land their crew. When you get back, you nudge theirs out of the way on their long painter and pull your dinghy in to load up. Easy! Or at least easy as long as everyone does it. It's generally poor form to tie up your dinghy fore-and-aft as it takes up two cleats and makes it so that no one can maneuver to the dock for the entire length of your dinghy. Please, just don't do it.

But some places are prone to theft and locks are recommended. Even if everyone is only tied up with one line, locks can piss people off if they are super short (or worse, strung through the dinghy handles and locked fore-and-aft). A 3' cable lock means your dinghy can only move a little over a foot from the cleat--it's not maneuverable at all and makes it hard for others to land on a crowded dock. I've seen the super short cables locked to a dock and the long painter floating in the water next to it. The long painter doesn't do any good there--it literally does nothing! 

So what do we do? We use an obnoxiously long steel cable and a U-lock. We have a 30' long, 10mm (I think...maybe 12mm) steel cable. It is looped around our dinghy engine lock, routed over the deck, and led out to the dock. With that kind of length and our 10' dinghy, we can lock up so that our "painter" is 10-20' long! On some cleats we feed the cable through the cleat and back into the dinghy. On others we just slip the U-lock through the center hole of the cleat and lock the cable on. Either way, the cleat is still totally available for someone else to tie off a painter and with all of that cable we can adjust the length of our "painter" to fit the crowding at the dock. Our cable and lock are so beefy that we don't even bother with the rope painter. 

The cable is looped around our outboard lock and run along the deck to the bow under the fuel tank.

The cable is fed through a sturdy cleat and the lock is kept in the dinghy, leaving it 10'+ away from the dock.

This beefy bike lock was left over from our land days and works well!

We've seen skinnier cables, stainless steel chain, and shorter (but not super short) cables just run from the bow--all are options. Just be considerate other boaters and you're good to go!

Once final note...raising your dinghy engine at a crowded dinghy dock is also not a good move. This puts your prop in danger of slicing open someone else's tubes. At really shallow docks where there is plenty of room and everyone can be on about the same length of painter without turning all around and bumping, it can work. But in general, just try to avoid it at docks. Engine up on the beach, engine down at the dock!