Launching Oday 25 C/B 3.9 draft without a tongue extension.

[SlimPickens]

Nice extension! Great pictures!

Chief, that's good to know. If my trailer extension ever rusts out, maybe I'll just try a long receiver extension.

Here are some pics of the extension I designed and my friend built for me. It doesn't slide, and removes completely. He's going to make a bracket to hold it onto the trailer so I don't have to strap it on with nylon cam buckle straps.

Brian

Those are very excellent and useful pictures, thank you. As I posted below to Chief, I wouldn't have guessed that the ball and trailer tongue would be fixed on the boat end of the extension, but I guess that makes backing up a lot easier and double jack-knifing a lot less likely. Since Chief's extension is pretty short (Sorry about that Chief!), the torque on his receiver would be correspondingly less and his angle between the extension and the trailer tongue isn't fixed. My head was getting all squirrley with the idea of an extension being unfixed at both ends and trying to back up into C and Z curves!
If your three bolt H type clamp for the extension is bolted to the center of your square tongue tubing, you might be able to rotate it backwards out of the clamping position and let your extension move a bit, relative to the tongue, if you ever got wedged into a tight spot. It looks like the square tubing of the extension may be able to slide underneath your tongue and fit in the bottom part of the H, to stow that end of it?

 

[SlimPickens]

The O'day 25's mast is going to be heavy. That is going to be a job to get it down. Definitely get plenty of helping hands for that job.

There are a lot of videos on youtube of stepping and unstepping masts. Seaward has a pretty cool system that they use for their boats. I believe that Hunter also had a good system for the H260 line. Take a look at those videos.

I use to step the mast on my Hunter 22 frequently. I could do it myself but I did muscle it up. As you get older you learn to work smarter and not harder. There has to be a better way than this and a lot of people have come up with great ideas that are cheap!

I agree, the ideal for me is not roping in 4 people who would probably rather be enjoying the weekend another way, but controlling the process without dislocating a shoulder or breaking any hardware. Since the Oday mast raising system that uses the boom, winch, and inserted triple shackle points on the stays above the turnbuckles came with the boat, it seems to make a gin pole unnecessary. It looks doable with two people, maybe one with practice and a mast crutch.
In the old days it was easy for two guys to step the mast on a Hobie 16, modified Iwo Jima style. This mast is supposed to be only 60 unwieldy pounds or so, probably 20 more if you include the weight of the lines, lights and halyards etc.

I have the instructions for the stock system and have seen the video for the stock type system and for a gin pole. The stock system works with the boom on the back and the gin pole worked from the bow, on another model if I recall. It looked like the tough part for one person was maintaining lateral stability.

Also note, there was a great thread here in January 2014 on use of a tongue extension. It had very useful pictures as well, but did not come up when my first search was made before posting this thread.
Thanks to all posting here!

 

[SlimPickens]

Re: Launching Oday 25 C/B 3.9 draft without a tongue extensi

The 4-1 block and tackle makes it easy some have a lock (tractor supply), you either need a gin pole or an a-frame to keep the mast stable from side to side and act as the fulcrum point. I always did mine alone. You will need a stern mast support higher than the cabin height to keep from damaging it when lowereing the mast. My mast support fit where the rudder attached but it also made trailoring it very easy.Make sure shrouds are loose and make sure you check them when raising the mast it is very easy to bend a turn buckle. I bent one the first time. With practice you can put it up in 45 minutes. I would also consider an extension pole of 9- 10 feet it keeps the truck further away from the water. Some ramps are very shallow but long and the extension really helps. Consider putting guide poles on the trailer that will be higher than the water it makes getting the boat back on much easier. I miss the Oday 25 shallow boat it was my learning boat.

Steve

Great advice, Thanks!

 

[Brian S]

Slim, the way it works is we mounted the trailer ball to the beam. Then we built the H bracket under the tongue. You take the square end of the extension under the tongue, insert it into the bracket, and lift up to engage the ball into the trailer coupler. When there's load on the system, it levers downward against the ball, and the end pushes down on the bottom bolt in the bracket. It has proven to be a remarkably stable system.

When my buddy was cutting the plates for the bracket, welding a riser to contain it on the tongue, and drilling the holes for the bolts, he wasn't quite as clear on the vision of the system. It turns out he made it very precisely - there was no play in the system. It worked great if you bolted everything in place, including the extension, but there was no extra space to take the extension out. We solved that by welding some thin spacers on the sides of the bracket, to give us about 1/8" width. I had originally spec'd 1/2" bolts, which is total overkill, so I replaced the bottom bolt with a 3/8", and that bought us 1/8" in height. So now it is possible to insert the end of the extension into the bracket!

I got the idea from a guy who made an extension out of 4x4 wood for his Precision. On his version, he mortised out the wood so the V shaped skid plate under the tongue would fit into the wood. Me, I hacksawed that thing OFF!

If your three bolt H type clamp for the extension is bolted to the center of your square tongue tubing, you might be able to rotate it backwards out of the clamping position and let your extension move a bit, relative to the tongue, if you ever got wedged into a tight spot. It looks like the square tubing of the extension may be able to slide underneath your tongue and fit in the bottom part of the H, to stow that end of it?