Securing a dingy

[sarbog]

Interested in any thoughts and/ or suggestions on how to secure my dinghy. It is a 9' x 4' classic wood Penn Yan. Weighs about 50lbs. My thought was to secure it on the bow using the rails the sun pad secures to. Padding? Straps? A better idea?

 

[Gofirstclass]

A 50lb dinghy could be pulled up over the bow rails by two people without damaging either the rails or the boat.

As to securing it, I'd get a high density foam pad that's larger than the dinghy by several inches each direction and secure it to the sun pad rails on the bow. You could use heavy duty zip ties to do that.

Then secure the dinghy to it, upside down. No zip ties here, use a good quality dock line or get a length of 3 strand nylon. I'd try to avoid having any lines run from the dinghy to the bow rail stanchions themselves. That presents a tripping hazard that could cause someone to tumble overboard.