Attaching a Life Ring

Well. Just how do you guys go about attaching your 30 in Life Rings to your small boats so that they are firmly attched yet quickly accessible?

I have a 24 ft Center Console with Hard T Top


It has to be out of the way for fishing. Fly Fishing, Botton Fishing & Trolling. Anything from Trout to Giant Bluefin

 

We use these aluminum rail-mount ring bouy brackets:
http://www.jmsonline.net/RAIL-MOUNT-ALUM-RING-BUOY-BRKT.htm

The rail-mount portion may be removed for attachment to flat surfaces. The safety strap is essential! UV radiation will deteriorate the strap in a few years, but replacement Velcro straps are easy to make.

 

Just how small is your small boat. You can use a locker if it is mounted on the side of a deck house, a rail hook like Larry, and there are several other types of racks that the ring slips into and is held in by a strap that can either be bulkhead or rail mounted.

FWIW, I've carried a horseshoe attached to a Man-overboard pole with a drogue rather than a throwing ring. Rings are hard to see in a running seaway and can drift rather fast.

 

...using stainless hooks like in the pic, but use two, at 10 and 2 o'clock, that way the ring stays stable and does not roll with the boat back and forward.

 

I would just tow it behind my canoe.

 

Consider a throw bag; http://www.go2marine.com/product.do?no=116061F&WT.mc_id=gb1 . It looks to me as if you are a T-boat. If so, the painter has to be 60', as I recall, and 3/8 artificial line of a certain strength. For practical purposes, if it is 3/8 artificial, it will pass. Horseshoe "rings" are not acceptable. It really starts to get funky as you put the water light on, too. That is the best water light, BTW. Everything you have there will pass if that painter is 60' and the ring is 30".