So almost had a major catastrophe whith my Hunter 34 during winter haul out today. Upon haul out the yard lift operator caught the back edge of my keel with the aft strap. I have marks on my toe rail where the straps are to be place and also use peices of scrap carpet that I also place between the straps so that the water line and hull can not get scratched. As the straps were place at the markings I noticed that something didn't look right. The aft stap block was in the correct location, however the strap appeared to be at a very slight angle.
The dock hands gave a thumbs up and they began to lift the boat. As the keel came out of the water I spotted the problem and yelled to the operator to stop and drop the boat back into the water. The aft strap was on the edge of the keel. The entire back half of the boat was being supported by three inches of the twenty inch strap. Omg!! If the strap had fallen off my boat would have been totaled. The boat would have crashed into the service bulkhead, the back stay would have crashed into the lift, the rig would have most likely come down, and someone could have been seriously injured.
After this near miss I strongly recommend that everyone take photographs of the under sides of your boat and show them to the lift personal so that they can see where and what's is under your boat. I'm now always going to insist that we have three or more people when lifting my boat, so that this never happens again.
The big leson I have learned today is if something doesn't look quite right then say something. We all know our boats better then they do.
Hopefully this post will prevent this from ever happening to anyone else.
The dock hands gave a thumbs up and they began to lift the boat. As the keel came out of the water I spotted the problem and yelled to the operator to stop and drop the boat back into the water. The aft strap was on the edge of the keel. The entire back half of the boat was being supported by three inches of the twenty inch strap. Omg!! If the strap had fallen off my boat would have been totaled. The boat would have crashed into the service bulkhead, the back stay would have crashed into the lift, the rig would have most likely come down, and someone could have been seriously injured.
After this near miss I strongly recommend that everyone take photographs of the under sides of your boat and show them to the lift personal so that they can see where and what's is under your boat. I'm now always going to insist that we have three or more people when lifting my boat, so that this never happens again.
The big leson I have learned today is if something doesn't look quite right then say something. We all know our boats better then they do.
Hopefully this post will prevent this from ever happening to anyone else.