Connie, Once in a while my wife and I would spend a Sunday afternoon at a launch ramp in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. It was a riot watching the macho boaters loose their rigs and fight for the chance to do it. We even had gunplay at the ramp one Sunday. That is when Jan and I stopped going. Nuts. Tom B On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Conbert Benneck <chbenneck@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/29/2015 12:45 PM, John Schinnerer wrote:
Hi John,
Don't forget to make, or buy 4 wheel chocks. Two are for the trailer wheels and two are for the back wheels of the tow car.
Place them where you want your car's back wheels to stop as you are launching your boat.
Chocks prevent unintended swim attempts by the car. (... and cars eagerly want to go swimming; it's something new for them)
They also provide security and peace-of-mind while launching or retrieving on a wet, slick, slippery, launch ramps.
Add lanyards to the chocks, and fasten the ones at the back wheels of the car to the trailer hitch. Then as you start to pull your boat out of the water, you can continue up the ramp without having to stop to retrieve your chocks.
In Clearwater, FL I once saw a hot-shot pick-up driver back down a wet ramp at high speed.
His buddy had a metal-flake high speed powerboat who was planning to squirt the boat onto trailer ....
Well, .... at the appropriate spot on the ramp the pick-up driver hit his brakes; the brakes locked up the wheels; and trailer plus pick-up slid majestically down the slick ramp, coming to a stop in the green waters of the Inter coastal Waterway with water completely over the hood of the pick-up....
Somewhere on the Internet you can also see a Rolls Royce that tried to learn to swim, bu wasn't very successful. Ouch!
Connie
Hi again,
Had Pajarita (M17 #38) in a temporary slip at Lake of the Woods, southern Oregon, last Wednesday through Sunday. Sailed her Wednesday, briefly Friday, longer sails Saturday and Sunday. Wed-Sat were medium to strong winds and gustiness, kept to the small jib and first reef in main Fri and Sat as some of the gusts were 15+ and from varying/unpredictable mountain lake directions. She does great in all conditions so far. Sunday was calm to light air, finally got to try the genoa, which seems huge in my experience, and moves her along amazingly well in feather-light breezes.
Then it was time to haul out. My 2001 Outback wagon 2.5L 5-spd did just fine pulling her out of the water. It is a fairly gentle ramp, there are certainly steeper ones out there. But so far so good, it wasn't on the edge on the gentle ramp so there is some margin for steeper ones.
And, because of the gentle ramp, getting her off the trailer was difficult without floating the car also. So before pulling out, I had fabricated an 18" (pin to pin) extension bar for my hitch. That gave me just enough more trailer in the water (without the car more in the water) to float her all but the last 2 ft. or so onto the trailer. I use the extension bar ONLY on the ramp - it's not suitable for towing. Ultimately I need the front of the trailer extended, ideally with a sliding extension.
The tow home included ~12 miles of sometimes winding and sometimes steep downhill, secondary highway quality road. Engine braking and vehicle brakes were adequate for the task. I was going slower on the downhills for sure than I would without the trailer; other than that, no problems with the towing.
cheers, John S.