So a friend of mine bought a boat from another friend of mine. Unfortunately, for him, he had to take a job 5 hours away from his new to him boat. Fortunately, for him, that job is on the Georgia coast.
Originally, he tapped someone else to drive his boat down, but that fell through when the size of the tow vehicle was questioned. So, together we put his boat on my trailer and made arrangements to go down to Savannah.
Now, as is often the case, unexpected things happen that interrupt plans. Boating, and its associated sub-activities seem to have more than its fair share or unexpected “opportunities”. Like fixing the cockpit sole leads to another project of fixing a cockpit hatch cover. One time I ran a circuit to wire up a chart plotter. That lead to rewiring the panel. Adding a bilge pump once led to … Well, I am sure you get it and that if you have a boat the experience has been the same. For this trip the opportunity was my trailer.
First we repacked the bearings. This lead to replacing a couple of the bearings and a questionable look at the brakes. Everything seemed in working order when we back the trailer into the water and put his catalina 25 on it. We pulled it out and it balanced nicely on the trailer and we made plans for me to bring it to him the following weekend. When I hooked it up, that next week, to pull it down I noticed the brakes didn’t work and neither did the lights. So with a week between hauling it and then trying to haul it, the gremlins that haunt boat yards and sail clubs had taken to wrecking my wiring.
That weekend was a wash for trailering. But at least I got the electrical issues sorted out. I would like to thank the makes of coke, as their formulation seems great at improving the connectivity of corroded electrical connections.
I finally, delivered the boat. I found out a few things that I didn’t know. First, marinas with sailboats as the primary customer are WAY more expensive than their powerboat siblings. Though, if you have a big sailboat, 30+ feet, you may want that. The second thing I found out, was that over head cranes work fine for launch 25 foot sailboats. Heck, I didn’t even get my tires wet (other than the rain). I just backed in under the overhead crane and the fine marina crew of 16/17 year olds launched it. All for a mere $1 per foot; cheap and extremely easy.
When I go trailer sailing in the future, I will certainly look for a place that will launch the boat so cheaply.