On our overseas bareboat flotilla trips each yacht is provided with a motor dinghy used to go ashore, get out to the good snorkeling spots or even just to have fun buzzing around the anchorage. When underway in the yachts, the dinghies are often towed behind with a line called a painter.  This same painter is also used to tie the dinghy to the various docks located at restaurants and other business that cater to visiting yachts.

Instead of cleats the dinghy docks often come with a wooden 2×4 rail mounted on blocks along the side of the dock.  There are lots of ways to secure the painter to the dock but the most widely recognized is probably the round turn with two half hitches. 

A few years ago, on one of our BVI cruises we were 5 yachts and on the first day out from the charter base, we all sailed to the same mooring field where there was one restaurant with its own dinghy dock.  Upon arriving with my crew, I said my deepest and most authoritative voice, “Let me show you how to tie up this dinghy so it’ll be here when we get back.”  After tying up the dinghy we went into the restaurant where the crews of all the boats in our flotilla wound up. 

It was a great evening.  We ate, laughed, we danced, and I think we even sang until eventually, after all the other crews had departed back to their yachts, we set out to do the same.  We stepped onto the dinghy dock, looked around, and guess what… no dinghy.  Knowing what dinghies do when set adrift I looked downwind and sure enough, there was a dinghy up against the shoreline.  I wasn’t very happy; in fact, I was kind of grumpy, but I waded across to where the dinghy was and brought it back to the dock.

As we were getting in, one of the members of the crew said, “Hey Bob.” kind of chirpy. 

I replied, “What?” kind of grumpy. 

Then she announced, “This isn’t our dinghy.” 

I took a closer look. “You’re right.”

Because many dinghies look alike, they are numbered for identification. On our first charter day we had neglected to memorize our number.  Apparently, someone else neglected to look at their number, too.  When they came out of the restaurant and saw only one dinghy, they naturally thought it was theirs.  In the morning we exchanged dinghies back to the way we had started because we had already become rather attached to our dinghy.