More sailing and Subaru towing report
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. -- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com
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.
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.
Good idea about the lanyards, thanks - now you mention it I recall seeing that a time or two when I was a kid and we had a little fishing cartop boat that got launched a lot of different places on vacations. My rear wheels are in the water though in order to float the boat. So that would be a bit of a challenge to place the chocks...:-) I have 2x and 4x pieces that I use when parked to rig up, etc.. I once stumbled over a video on youtube showing a wrecker pulling an entire full size US-made van (Dodge, Chevy etc.) and attached boat trailer out of the water at a ramp somewhere. No idea where the boat ended up. It floated better than the van and trailer I reckon. cheers, John S. On 09/29/2015 12:07 PM, Conbert Benneck 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.
-- John Schinnerer - M.A., Whole Systems Design -------------------------------------------- - Eco-Living - Whole Systems Design Services People - Place - Learning - Integration john@eco-living.net - 510.982.1334 http://eco-living.net http://sociocracyconsulting.com
On 9/30/2015 10:08 PM, John Schinnerer wrote: John, I know the problem: " rear wheels are in the water". When I bought my first trailerable sailboat, a Bolger designed cat yawl MICRO, and being a trailer newbie with 0 trailer knowledge or experience, I found the MICRO on a massive humongous long trailer. So, my first launching and retrieving experiences were (almost) no problem. After seeing other boat trailers at the ramp in Clearwater, FL, it slowly dawned on me that my trailer wasn't a typical boat trailer, but something leftover from a mobile home. As an engineer, I then measured the trailer frame members, went to the Library; found my weights per foot of length of the frame members; and with a bit of slide rule work and addition, I came to the conclusion that my trailer weighed three times as much as the MICRO did. I had now hauled this vastly overweight rig from Bay City, MI where I had picked up the new toy, to Clearwater, Florida, and later back to Connecticut via I-95N. So, once back home, the first order of business was , buy a "proper" boat trailer; which I did. However, my "real" 250 lbs boat trailer was now much shorter than the original one made of channel steel was, ergo; rear wheels in the water if I tried to launch. I needed to get the MICRO plus trailer into the water, but how? My initial solution was to use an old anchor rode from my big boat as a trailer tongue extension. (why you really need chocks for trailer and car wheels) Lower the support wheel of the trailer; tie anchor rode to trailer, using about 8 feet of rode; tie the other end to the eye at the towing hitch. Now I had a trailer tongue extension. The only problem was that the flexible extension required my Admirable to push and pull the trailer tongue so that it was aimed where we wanted it to go as I slowly backed the car down on DRY ramp surfaces. This method worked successfully many times, (but required two people) until I finally got a real trailer tongue extension made for the trailer. A solid trailer tongue extension is the final and best answer to the problem. Car wheels stay dry, and boat plus trailer are deep enough in the water so that M-17 floats off. Connie
Good idea about the lanyards, thanks - now you mention it I recall seeing that a time or two when I was a kid and we had a little fishing cartop boat that got launched a lot of different places on vacations.
My rear wheels are in the water though in order to float the boat. So that would be a bit of a challenge to place the chocks...:-)
I have 2x and 4x pieces that I use when parked to rig up, etc..
I once stumbled over a video on youtube showing a wrecker pulling an entire full size US-made van (Dodge, Chevy etc.) and attached boat trailer out of the water at a ramp somewhere. No idea where the boat ended up. It floated better than the van and trailer I reckon.
cheers, John S.
On 09/29/2015 12:07 PM, Conbert Benneck 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.
participants (3)
-
Conbert Benneck -
John Schinnerer -
Thomas Buzzi