I have to launch from a trailer all the time, makes for an interesting day of sailing. To go sailing entails a lengthy drive so I try to make a day of it, 1st I check the weather and of course
wind, strength and direction, predominant wind for me here in the Midwest is SE, I know my lakes very well having scouted them out on previous sailing trips, so I know I will head up to Mark Twain as it runs E-W and I know I will put in on the south bank, cat facing into wind and a small cove offers lee shelter, getting an early start also means little wind. I pull up onto the ramp area out of the way and setup, step the mast, raise the jib, a furled jib is so much more advantageous in this situation but before I converted I would tighten jib lines and cleat off to stop sail flap. If wind is already blowing, I rig mainsail and mainsheet with blocks but do not raise sail, put the cat in the water and use either jib lines or bungee cord to cleat cat to dock, there are narrow docks on either side of ramp and depending on wind, always cleat downwind of dock, fortunately docks have continuous rubber bumper around entire length. Have to drive almost 200 yards to park truck & trailer constantly keeping an eye on cat, things can get out of control very quickly with swirling wind.
Depending on strength of wind, I will either leave cat cleated to dock and raise sail standing on the tramp, or if wind is really blowing I will swim cat over to beach where I can stand in front of front beam and raise main with cat facing into wind, this is where the ring and hook method of attaching mainsail becomes a real bee_yach, you have to turn the mast to try hook into ring but you're standing in waist/chest deep water and struggle to reach mast rotator and the wind opposes your every attempt trying to twist the mast head-on to the wind, it can be tedious. I'm either standing on rocks used around ramps as wave break, or I'm standing in thick mud up to my ankles, so when I finally get the main rigged got to drag my feet for a while to try get most of the mud off.
Try to have as much as I need with me on the cat so that I don't have to come back for the rest of the day.....because that is a whole other situation. Have on occasion just sailed up to the down wind dock and stepped of, secured the cat, dropped the main, furled the jib and walked off to get the trailer, but most times you're heading back into the wind which has picked up in the PM, if the cove offers a lee shelter can drop main close in and paddle in, but most times have to pull up to rocky/muddy beach, drop main, furl jib, swim cat almost 100 yards to dock, secure, go get trailer, manhandle boat onto trailer, pull up onto ramp and drop the mast.
Every time I do this, I cannot help but notice the stares of all the people putting their power boats in at the ramp, like I'm some kind of weirdo, or a nut job. One person backs the truck down, the other person sitting in the boat activates the electric tilt on the motor, electric starter fires up the motor, backs off trailer, circles out and back to the dock as driver parks trailer and walks out on dock to boat, hops in and takes off without even getting their feet wet, takes all of 2 min, weirdos!
Turbo
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TurboHobo
H14T
H16
P18
G-Cat 5.0
P16
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Posted: Oct 10, 2010 - 11:07 PM
