Chase boats, traditionally too big to live onboard, have become a must-have accessory for yacht owners. They are designed to be functional and luxurious, with a harmonious blend of form and function. In January 2024, Falcons delivered a pair of matching 10-meter tenders, one open sports tender, and one closed limousine to a client. These custom designs have become essential for superyacht owners, as they are ideal for reconnaissance missions, exploring excursion options, and exploring anchorage spots.
Chase boats can be purely functional items for some yacht owners, while more extravagant superyacht owners view them as the ultimate accessory. Luxury tenders, such as the 18m chase boat from Windy Boats, cruise as if on rails. The size and range of superyacht tenders is wide-ranging, from classic mahogany Riva to Pascoes custom chase boats and Damen Yachtings support vessels.
Engineered for performance, chase boats usually boast impressive horsepower, typically starting from around 600 hp and soaring to over 2,000. Traditionally used as fast open boats that chased after large sailing yachts competing in regattas, chase boats have evolved to meet the needs of yacht owners.
The range of chase boats and tenders can be seen as essential for tender services, water sports, and exploration, making them indispensable for yacht owners. The trend is driven by the desire for more efficient and comfortable sailing experiences on larger motor yachts.
📹 The Perfect Super Yacht Chase Boat *Yachts What* E11
We are delighted to be joined by Jan-Erik, the co-founding partner of AXOPAR Boats, he gives us a full insight into how the …
📹 Towing A 700HP Boat With A Super Yacht!!! (Captain’s Vlog 92)
We go though the entire process of how we connect the chase boat with the Tow line to a superyacht. Captain Tristan Mortlock is …
I’ve read every comment here, and seen all of your articles. Everything you do on AWOL you do with safety in mind, down to the tiniest detail and multiple redundant systems you safeguard your ship, your crew, and your guests. But here we have a situation where you are not. Multiple experienced industry professionals have commented below with facts and figures of how this tow line could be set up better. “It’s worked for 6000 miles” is a surprisingly flippant answer to hear from you. Love the website, best regards
Hey captain, as part of my job I am trained in rope rescue, one of the things we are taught are critical angles in rope deflection. It looks in the article that you have a very wide angle on your line that the tow line is attached to. You might want to look into it because at such a wide angle, you could be compounding tho load on your anchors, but more importantly your line. A longer line could make for a narrower angle and reduce the stress on the line and anchors. Great article, I find your work to be very interesting!
Thanks for your articles Tristan, they are very informative and give a little insight for the sea worthy wannabe’s. I spent 10 yrs in the Navy, but still learning 🙂 Being able to spend a week onboard AWOL will be a forever dream for me. I’m 59 now, so the next best thing is to simply watch the excellent articles like you provide. Sorry you didn’t reach the 100K subscribes you needed (71.1K as of 16 Oct 2019), but I’m now a subscriber. Keep up the good work.
Dyneema wouldn’t be my first choice in tow line. It has next to zero stretch, so there’s next to no shock absorption in that tow system to account for when towed vessel, is straining against a swell while towing vessel is pushing down the face of a swell. The constant jerking motion places undue strain on your 2 tow point bollards. If for example you had a rubber car tyre in the middle of the tow line it would both deform from round & stretch even to provide that shock absorption in the tow system. Or you could select a towline with stretch like polyethylene rather than dyneema. Dyneema s other great failing is that the fibres are brittle if bent much past 90 degrees so knots selection is critical to avoid doubling the line back on itself, if you don’t want to prematurely weaken the dyneema fibres. It would be preferable to employ a shock absorber in the tow line than to use say a polyethylene line that stretches, for safety reasons, risk to crew. A stretched polyethylene line that parts can recoil with great force. Using a non stretch line like dyneema in a towing application at sea without employing any form of shock absorption is just transferring all the strain to both vessels which is less than desirable long term in my opinion.
We used to tow with a 50m line made up of a set length bridal to reduce the angle from the aft bits and slap from choppy conditions and Spectra straight back to the tender. The set length bridal also reduces the amount of movement the tender on tow will have. P.s life jacket crotch straps are always better used!
you could add something to the boat to make it have more drag so the boat stays straight. like a small anchor on a short line. I am a scout and in the netherlands we have land and water scouts. im a waterscout and we have 12 sailing boats so when we go camp for a week we tow our 12 boats the last boat always drops an empty beer crate on a rope to pull the whole tow straight. cool to see how you do it on a yacht!
In case of bigger waves, we put a heavy weight in the connection line. It wil sinking down. When you go forward, the downforce of that weight will help you, to get smoth towingforce and it works like a shock absorber if the vessels are fighting waves. Even when you slow down, this weight will help, that the vessel in the back don’t touch you. Because of the downforce. The weight is sinking to the ground and works a bit like an anchor. (sorry for my bad english. I’m out of training.)
Great to see the safety precautions and great care in paying out the tow line and staying inboard of the bridle. On Captain Cook’s first voyage around the world in 1769 other than for natural causes only one member of the crew died on the voyage due to accident which was unusual for those times. That death was a seaman got his foot caught in the bight of an anchor rope and was pulled overboard and went down with the anchor.
That ‘Black line’ is called a bridle, mate. The bridle is far too short, creating too large an angle at the bridle apex (as others have pointed out), putting additional stress on the bitts. When securing the eye of the bridle to the bitts the eyes shouldn’t simply be thrown over the post, rather the line should be taken outboard, round the forward post and led back and looped over the aft post. Tip: coil your Dyneema towline in a figure-of-eight when stowing, prevents all those kinks when flaking the line out (which he doesn’t do either) before setting the towline. There’s not much seamanship going on here.
Hi Captain, this article helped me, On a much smaller scale I was thinking about about towing our sealegs rib behind our Prestige 520 fly, We have a small Willaims on board sitting on Swim Platform. Our holiday home is one side of the estuary and the marina the other side. It makes for a long 50 minute drive around. Sometimes we go over on the rib and park in visitor berths. then go out on the 520. Then going off for a cruise somewhere, and finding a nice anchorage I then wished I had the Sea Legs just to drive up onto a beach where the tide as gone out. I need to ask this question what are the pitfalls? I sure don’t want to sink the boat being towed.
Hi Ian Moore commented below I think my followup comment bears repeating here Ian Moone I agree with you Ian. You mention ‘polyethylene’ for a tow line the usual tow line material is Nylon it has 15-30% elongation before deformation which is why it is use for dock lines, anchor lines, or ‘snubber bridals ‘ for chain anchoring and all sorts of mooring lines to absorb shock loads. It’s what commercial tugs use if not using steel cables. Dynema (in the non prestretched version) does have the highest strength to diameter and great UV resistance but not the best a chafe protection. (Dynema actually polyethylene is a modified long chain Polylethene plastic, Like plastic bags and milk bottles! ) It Used to be called Spectra in USA but they changed the name to the European name for less confusion. Polypropylene is not good for large towing applications, it is used for ski line towing because of its natural floating ability and fair shock/stretch ability but does not have great UV resistance, it also does not hold knots well . Nylon is the line of choice for non static load applications. Cheers Warren
Sure wish those filming had shown close-ups of the chase boat connections of the bridle to the chase boat (looked like custom S.S. fittings on the chase boat?) and AWOL’s bridle to AWOL (line loops through the center of AWOL’s cleats then over the horns of the cleat, or double loop over the horns of the cleat, or other?) I believe line loop to cleat recommendations have changed over the years? I really appreciate all the fairlead options on the stern of AWOL!
Great article, though i feel like then camera person cut away from right when she was securing the line, did she just loop it over the cleat? Also, that looked like a major shackle, would have been cool to see how it operated. He just flipped it open, what keeps it closed, I mean, it’s got a couple hundred thousand Euros behind it… so it’s gotta be good.
What a complete faff that is, surely there’s a better way. What happens if the sea gets really rough and the wind starts blowing will not the little boat be pushed all over the place and maybe into AWOL itself. Still it was interesting to watch, and would like to see the boat brought back to AWOL, to see how you do that.
My years as a certified rigger in the construction industry we tried to maintain a 60 degree triangle with the 3 legs of the rigging when possible. So each leg of line paying out to the tow boat would be the same length as your distance between your cleats. This is the strongest angle for your line under a load. the flatter the angle you go, the higher the load on your cleats and the lower the load limit on your line. Is there a reason you use a flatter angle on your towing set up?
Ends of black line should also be wrapped on bollards and not with an eye splice. If for any reason you had to drop the tow while pressure is on you won’t be getting that loop off without cutting the line. Just a suggestion. Also not a fan of the single bridle. With the strength of soft shackles the argument of a hard shackle hitting the stern is no longer an excuse.
Hi Tristan, As both an EX RNLI member and also a Master myself I always enjoy perusal your vlogs. I currently drive a training ship but wish I had got into the super yacht industry when I was younger. Couple of points to note mainly from my Lifeboat days. A lifejacket is useless without a crotch strap worn, I have seen time and time again lifejackets, even well fitted ones, slip up and over the head. Also a comment earlier about Faking the line on the swim platform rather than coiling it would make for a much smoother transition into the tow. Keep up the good work and look forward to seeing the article of the chase boat.
I think u guys are the best, but this one for me needed more specific input! I personally still couldn’t tell if the black line tied to boat was only one line or two? Also what was tow line made out of, and why do you tow that specific way vs other? And please, this is only my curiosity being I don’t know?!! What was the red and white thing for, flotation of clasp? In my mind if the black line was only one line, if it broke, no other line as back up to tender? Maybe I missed if there was actually a second line? Thanks for everything, I just want to keep learning!
The geometry of the tow lines is strange. The AWOL is using 2 lines spread essentially from gunwale to gunwale leading back to a single point; the towed fast boat whose bow is very narrow in comparison is connected at 3 points versus 2 creating a false inertial moment & these 3 lines are merging forward to a single point with a rigid hardware connector that essentially negates the shock loading of the towlines & seems to be inducing the towed vessel’s “waddle”.
Towing a 700 hp boat. Is that a lot of power? So let’s see, my yacht has twin 2800 hp engines. The captain who is doing the vlog must be super smart. Point I’m trying to make is that captain is so proud of his 700hp boat. He must be on an ego trip. Most big yachts don’t set up with their towline floating meaning that the rope moves one side to the other. There should be a fixed bridle off the transom so there would be no rope chafing. The tow rope shoals have an eye spliced in at the end of the rope allowing a shackle being used to secure the the bridle to the tow line
I’m surprised you have such a large chase boat. Any reason why? I would think it would be better to have a rigid inflatable hull boat as your chase boat and one that is capable of being hauled into the garage. I know you probably use the chase boat to ferry clients back and forth but seems like there could be better options for a chase boat than what you have. That chase boat alone probably costs more than my house. I would think there would be liability with having the boat being towed and the risk of it slamming into AWOL. Is the chase boat provisioned out in anyway in case it needs to be separated from AWOL?
I enjoyed your article even though it had jerky hand movements making the article shake abnormally as you walked or panned. PLEASE consider acquiring and using a STEADY CAM type of device to make your article smooth even as you walk or pan around. If you are willing to donate 10,000 Euro then spending 100 euro on a steady cam device will not mean much to you but it will greatly improve your articles! Thanks again for the content, they are quite informative.
Good article. Enjoyed that. Cupl notes. Didn’t really like the long speeded up untying of chase boat sequence… dizzying. 2 untying multiple fenders on chaseboat unless narrating over to keep audience. Another approach; Film untying 1 fender…. operator walks to 2nd Fender reaching yo untie, Then go to next scene. Audience would get it …. no need to show multi repeating steps. Unless you need something mundane for background to provide narrating time. Jus my thoughts. Thank you. Enjoying your series & profession. Great crew.