When we got back from the Island the marina was redoing the dinghy racks. The only choice we had was to keep the dinghy in our slip next to our boat. Not a problem until the rains came and filled it up with rainwater. Both the mate and I had compromised backs and we could not lift, but the dinghy could not become a rain barrel. Without lifting we needed to pull the dinghy out of the water turn it over and put it aboard the boat. It dawned on me that the way to do it was how I had pulled the engine out of the 28, twice. Using the boat's boom as a cargo boom we had been able to pull the atomic 4 out of the cabin and put it onto a cart on the dock. Thank goodness this dinghy is 1/3 of the weight.
I led the main halyard around the point on the boom that was centered to the location we wanted the dinghy. I just made a loop around the boom so I wasn't crushing the sail. I snapped the main sheet onto this loop and also attached a guideline to pull the boom to the location we wanted it. From this point every pull or lift we needed was done with the main sheet and the guideline.
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Tying the boom hard over to starboard we used the mainsheet connected to the bow eye to pull the dinghy onto the dock.
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We then snapped the mainsheet to the starboard stern eye and raised the dinghy off the dock, swung it over and paid out the sheet to lay it down bottom up.
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I tied a bridle between the stern eyes making a loop midway to connect the sheet.
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With the bridle the dinghy wasn't high enough to clear the cockpit winches. I had to crank the halyard up to a higher level.
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From there it was just a matter of raising and lowering the dinghy with the sheet and halyard as we pulled the boom to where we needed it. It looks like the mate is working hard but she isn't, really. All the weight is removed.
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We were interrupted by a pack of raucous sea lions.They were jumping on and off the dock and generally being rowdy. we were able just to walk away from the dinghy and watch them. we just left the dinghy hanging.
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The end result isn't great but we didn't hurt our backs and the dink won't sink.
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We will re-address the whole issue when our backs are better. The Island is calling.
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