- Jun 16, 2009
- 44
Here's a picture of the maiden road voyage of our sailboat "Martini Time." We had to do quite a bit of planning and adjusting of the trailer since we were pretty inexperienced at this sort of thing. Thank goodness for careful planning and a detailed checklist… We had everything we needed for the operation. After several trial fits and lots of adjusting to the used trailer - That may or may not have been designed for the boat... She fit like a glove with just enough tongue weight to pull her safely home.
Once we got her behind the SUV it really made the truck look small and we were worried we weren't going to make it all the way home. Those two tires looked pretty heavily loaded Apparently our angel was with us last Saturday though… and we made it all the way to Trussville from Lake Guntersville without a hitch. No pun intended...
We've got a lot of work to do, but at least now I can work on her in the afternoons and I have all my tools handy and my workshop/garage only a few feet away. Our goal is to get her rewired, the hull cleaned up [Possibly painted too…] and the boat re-outfitted with new ropes and whatever fittings are needed and back in the water before July. I have already compiled a fairly detailed, comprehensive Project Management Outline. I have lots of reading to do on boat wiring, hull refinishing, sailboat rigging, etc… I still have to design and build some type of supports to temporarily get a 2100 pound boat up off the trailer and safely suspended in the air for hull sanding and painting. I also need to design some kind of rolling cradle in which to lower a 600 pound cast iron keel down onto in order to clean it of mussels and refinish it. So there will be some unique engineering problem solving on this project as well…
I will be doing lots of searching and reading on this forum, because we are new to sailboat ownership and sailing too. Any pointers to topics such as:
How to clean the bottom?
What to coat the bottom with?
How to do simple 12 volt sailboat wiring?
How to rig up all the hardware and what type of ropes to use?
... Would be much appreciated. Like I said I plan to search and read about all those topics, but any links or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for any help, and wish us luck.
Once we got her behind the SUV it really made the truck look small and we were worried we weren't going to make it all the way home. Those two tires looked pretty heavily loaded Apparently our angel was with us last Saturday though… and we made it all the way to Trussville from Lake Guntersville without a hitch. No pun intended...
We've got a lot of work to do, but at least now I can work on her in the afternoons and I have all my tools handy and my workshop/garage only a few feet away. Our goal is to get her rewired, the hull cleaned up [Possibly painted too…] and the boat re-outfitted with new ropes and whatever fittings are needed and back in the water before July. I have already compiled a fairly detailed, comprehensive Project Management Outline. I have lots of reading to do on boat wiring, hull refinishing, sailboat rigging, etc… I still have to design and build some type of supports to temporarily get a 2100 pound boat up off the trailer and safely suspended in the air for hull sanding and painting. I also need to design some kind of rolling cradle in which to lower a 600 pound cast iron keel down onto in order to clean it of mussels and refinish it. So there will be some unique engineering problem solving on this project as well…
I will be doing lots of searching and reading on this forum, because we are new to sailboat ownership and sailing too. Any pointers to topics such as:
How to clean the bottom?
What to coat the bottom with?
How to do simple 12 volt sailboat wiring?
How to rig up all the hardware and what type of ropes to use?
... Would be much appreciated. Like I said I plan to search and read about all those topics, but any links or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for any help, and wish us luck.