Long Linging Aluminum Boats

[Skidz]

Hydro-Quebec uses 16ft aluminum boats and 14ft cut-back canoes. They must have a couple hundred of 'em spread accross the James Bay region.

 

Most of them have had eye-bolts put through the transom and HQ has their own steel lanyards used to sling them, but two lanyards with clevis will do the trick. You add either an empty net or a tree to the bow and they'll fly great on the end of a long line up tp 65 kts or so. Easy to know when you're going too fast: The boat will start to oscillate from side to side and/or up and down a little.

 

The problem with bow-slinging is the boat may tend to go upside down on you (depending on where the hard point is on the bow). Your crews will appreciate when you can get the boat down on the water without it filling with water...

 

Btw, be carefull slinging anything by the handles. In the same week a couple years ago, I saw a Zodiac and an aluminum boat go thundering in when the handles broke...

 

I'm slinging zodiacs now, and they're flying in 18x18 nets. Works like a charm...

[sharkbait]

Sling them 2 points by the stern - put a couple of good size rocks in the bow or use a good sized pine tree.

 

Lots of folks use too small a tree - works even better if you attach the tree backwards ( sling from the top ) branches spread out like a parachute instead of streamlining.

 

[Gear]

Thanks for all the help full information.

 

Gear

[Jet B]

I like the tree method myself. It has been working great for me lately. But I have only had to fly 3 boats in the last month and I'm going 25-35 miles with them so I don't mind spending the time to rig them up so I can fly faster.

 

The trick I think is to use a nice long rope and a big *** tree for maximum drag.

 

I used a 40 foot rope and a 30 foot gnarled pine tree.

 

I even had to sling one of those damned fan type rice boats that way and it worked fine. But I hooked onto that one via two endless straps off the fan cage and tied the tree to the bow.

 

 

[DGP]

I use the upside down and backward method with a 5 foot lanyard attached to a net on the front for a drag shoot...can go 80 knots on a 50 foot line....getting turned downwind in a gale is fun...keep the speed up...no less than 40 knots and do a very wide turn...slung this 15 footer with centre steering postion 178 miles in a 40 knot wind...as mentioned...getting it downwind is very tricky

[Slinger]

Beware of satellite dishes I have yet to figure those out. They

are scary. Any suggestions?

 

I agree with Heliben's method because it has always worked me. I had a dish to sling once, a 6' dia. I tried it attach directly to the base attachement, which someone suggested. But that was the scariest ride I've done to date. Then I decided to put the dish in a net face down, big enough to wrap the whole thing. And that worked fine, I was cruising about 60-65 kts.

 

Mike

[offset]

A couple of straps around the middle seat and looped around the handles on the stern all hooked together with a tree to keep it tracking good. Looked like this from the ground. Hope that helps

 

 

Pilot tells me it was very stable a 60 mph. We don't want to go to fast anyway we get paid by the hour after all.

[heliben]

Yep paid by the hour. I think a helicopter pilot is the only job where we rush like **** to get paid less. Weird eh.