Megayachts are great for lots of things, but fishing ain't one of them. Have you ever tried a tag and release over the side of a 150-footer or followed the line with a yacht almost as long as a liner? It's like trying to corral a squirrel while riding an elephant. That's why many yacht owners who are also fishaholics never leave home without a boat suitable for serious fishing even if that means towing one behind their "real" yachts.

Towing a sportfisherman behind a mothership isn't as far-fetched an idea as it might seem to us mortals: In fact, for more than a decade it's been a popular way for high rollers to enjoy both the comforts of a plush cruising yacht and the no-nonsense function of a dedicated fishing machine. When the trend started in the late 1980s, the towed boats were mostly stripped-down 30-some-footers, sometimes with outboard power-simple and rugged dayboats that were just a smidgen too big to hoist onboard. Today that fishboat on the far end of the hawser is likely to be a bona fide yacht in her own right, a headturner in marinas from Chub Cay to the Kona coast.

Capt. Rheft Infinger skippers Orion, a 125-foot Feadship whose owner spends about one week per month onboard, fishing "about 99.9 percent" of the time. For the past couple of years, the Feadship towed a 43 Viking for the boss's piscatorial pursuits, but this year she's been replaced by a fish-at-any-cost Buddy Davis 50 Express (Orion's Little Dipper), specially modified for life at the end of a hawser. Seven crew members share duties between the two boats, although the Buddy Davis has her own skipper, Capt. Rick Myers. For fishing, Myers borrows the mate from the Feadship, apparently a double-threat guy as comfortable wiring a marlin as polishing chrome.

Towing a 50-footer isn't as straight forward as dragging a RIB or Whaler and requires plenty of up-front engineering, crew skill, and practice. It all starts with the towing gear. While the Viking was modified for towing after construction, the Buddy Davis was built from the keel up for that purpose.

"We reviewed the stresses with [naval architect] Don Blount and put in reinforcement well in excess of [what recommended]," says Buddy Davis president of the yard that bears his name. "You take what you think you need and make it twice as strong," adds Infinger.

Since a boat will tow best with the hawser attached low on the stern, rather than on the foredeck, a special towing fitment was built into the Buddy Davis 50's chain locker. In the hull around the fitment, Buddy Davis craftsman replaced the coring with double-thick laminate. A Divinycell-cored bulkhead more than three inches thick was glassed-in for even more support. The fitment, a stainless stell fabrication weighing more than 300 pounds, was bolted to this bulkhead. Only the towing ring protrudes from the hull, not all that far above the waterline. It's like the bow eye on a Boston Whaler, but on steroids.

After consulting several commercial towing companies, Infinger devised a towing rig comprised of two parts for decent weather and three or four parts for indecent. A bridle, made from a doubled-up 300-foot length of 21/2-inch-diameter, 12-strand plaited line, makes fast to the Feadship's port and starboard stern bitts; a heavy-duty shackle is seized midway in the bridle. The plait is made from a polypropylene hybrid and will stretch under strain; "you need some shock absorbing," Infinger explains. The towline, which is secured between the bridle and the Buddy Davis's bow eye, incidentally, won't stretch at all: It's one-inch-diameter Kevlar and stronger than steel cable. Moreover, because the bow eye is impossible to reach from the deck, the towline lives with one end always shackled to the eye. The standard towing arrangement uses a single 300-foot length or even a third.

All the books on seamship tell you to vary the length of a towline to match the sea state, to put the tow a couple of wave crests back. This technique is okay for a lightweight RIB, but when you have a 40,000-pound sportfisherman "on the string," you don't want to be playing around the hawser length you want to get right the first time, or at least err on the side of too much towline. The Feadship carries no special line-handling gear aft - no VW Beetle-size windlass, no massive bitts, nothing that would clutter the aft deck and ruin aesthetics - so every thing has to be done by the seven-person crew. Everyone, even the Feadship's stewardess, pitches in.

When making up the tow, Myers works the spsortfisherman close enough to the Feadship so his mate can throw a monkey's fist to the crew on the mothership. The crew then hauls the Kevlar towline aboard, shackles it to the midpoint of the bridle, and starts playing line. At the same time, Myers backs away from the Feadship while his own crew pays out towline, too. Once all the lines are streamed and the Feadship is underway, Myers shuts down his diesels, then locks the shafts so they don't spin. (Some gearboxes depend on the engine for lubrication and will self-destruct if left freewheeling.)

"Detroit Diesel says you can tow for 12 hours without locking the shafts, but I always do it anyway - you get less drag with the props not turning," says Myers. As it is, towing the Viking cost the Feadship 1 to 2 knots, a noticeable penalty when you figure the yacht cruises at 13 knots, max. On the other hand, "in some conditions the boat acts like a sea anchor and improves the yacht's handling," says Infinger. In other words, the added drag of the fishboat helps the Feadship track straighter and keeps the stern from slewing around in a quartering or following sea.

Finally, a crew member ferries Myers and his crew back to the Feadship using one of the megayacht's two Zodiacs. Since the tow is always unmanned, its running lights are rigged to switch on automatically at dusk. Because of the length of tow, both the Feadship and the sportfisherman have to carry proper towing lights, the same as required for a tug hauling a barge: The towing vessel carries two white mashead lights (three if the length of the tow, from the stern of one vessel to the stern of the other, is greater than 200 meters) and a yellow light above the stern light, with the same arc of visibility. The towed vessel carries red and green side lights and a stern light but no masthead light. In the daytime both vessels show a black diamond shape whenever the tow length is more than 200 meters.

The Buddy Davis 50 has an emergency light on her bridge, easily visible from the Feadship, set up to warn if something's amiss, e.g., the bilge pump starts running. Infinger keeps close watch on the tow, with visual inspections every half hour and constant monitoring by radar and an aft-facing camera.

Using this procedure Infinger has towed the fishboats thousands of sea miles, from places such as Charleston, South Carolina, south into the Caribbean, as far north as Maine, down to Mexico, and through the Bahamas without a hitch. His longest passage has been five days. "Towing isn't a problem," he says. "There's no limit as long as you have things rigged right; use a long enough towline, you can tow anything."

But not everybody is as well prepared, or lucky. Ask the mega-yacht owner who lost his 30-foot center console at sea several months ago when the towline parted (nobody notice?), only to get a message from the U.S. Navy when he hit home port. It seems the aircraft carrier Enterprise had retrieved his boat; later she was returned to him in a lighthearted ceremony, freshly detailed by the sailors. Now that's extreme.

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