Questions re Steep ramps & fin keels

[sinnettc]

We recently launched and retrieved Verboten, our fin keel tall rig Capri 22, at the Gleason ramp on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon. My trailer (see pic below) has 4 raised pads and a skid for the keel. We also have 2 dolly wheels on the front of the trailer so we can launch/retrieve the boat at the end of 30' of straps.

This was my first time at the Gleason ramp which is quite a bit longer, and steeper, than the ramp we normally use at Fern Ridge Reservoir. Launching was, as usual, simply a case of getting the trailer deep enough for the boat to float off the trailer.

When the boat is properly placed on the trailer about 3" or 4" of the skid extends behind the keel. When we pull Verboten at the lake the keel is usually completely on the skid but needs to be pulled forward with a come-along and one of the tow straps. What I saw when we pulled Verboten out at the Gleason ramp was downright scary - only about 50% of the keel was actually on the skid! Once we got to the top of the ramp and hooked the trailer to the hitch I was able to pull the boat forward and heave a huge sigh of relief.

A couple of observations: Due to high tannon/algae content the water we sail in generally doesn't let you see much below the surface, and my bow eye and the v pad *always* seem to be hitting each other when I retrieve. Moving either is not an option I'm interested in taking on.

So, the questions: What do the rest of you do in this kind of situation? Short of diving on the trailer, how do you know where your keel is in regard to the skid? Is there a way to get the boat placed better on a steep ramp? Would running the trailer deeper than normal help?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[jimmyb]

Holy Crap!
Sorry Chirs I dont have an answer for you but you are my new hero. I will have no hesitaion in buying a small fixed keel boat when I find the right one. Much smaller and much less draft we have been worried about...................no more!

God Bless, jimmyb

 

[Ray Bowles]

Chris, I've helped 2 friends build or modify trailers for boats such as yours with long fin keels. One was a 23' and a fairly light boat such as yours and one was a 26' Ranger that was quite heavy. In both cases we launch and retreive as you described.
We set both trailers up with bunks rather than pads to correct just the problem you had. The bunks on the lighter boat had 3 supports. The Ranger had 4 per side. Both trailers have a bow roller that in conjunction with the bow V bracket insure that the boat is all the way forward.
We do put on the chest wadders to walk out into the water to crank the bow winch up tight.
Converting your trailer over to bunks is a rather easy change.
I do think that if you raised the pads about an inch and installed a bow roller that that would seat the boat fully forward every time. If you have any questions catch me here or off line. I think we conversed this spring. I sail out of Kettle Falls and trailer sail.
Ray

 

[sinnettc]

Holy Crap!
Sorry Chirs I dont have an answer for you but you are my new hero. I will have no hesitaion in buying a small fixed keel boat when I find the right one. Much smaller and much less draft we have been worried about...................no more!

God Bless, jimmyb

Aww, we only have 4' draft. There's a couple of Olson 25's and a Laser 28 that draw even more and do the strap thing too.

 

[sinnettc]

Chris,

Converting your trailer over to bunks is a rather easy change.
I do think that if you raised the pads about an inch and installed a bow roller that that would seat the boat fully forward every time. If you have any questions catch me here or off line. I think we conversed this spring. I sail out of Kettle Falls and trailer sail.
Ray

Hi Ray,

Yeah, we did talk about Roosevelt Lake this spring, which now raises the question - what are the ramps like? Fairly shallow approaches or steep?

I kind of like the roller idea and I think it would be fairly easy to add one. Why did you suggest raising the pads? The boat seems to sit pretty well and the weight is definitely on the keel, not the hull, as I understand it should be.

Still haven't decided where we're headed next summer. San Juans were a blast but Roosevelt and Lake Pend O' sound interesting too, as does a cruise down the Columbia. So many options, not enough time.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[caguy]

Do you leave the dollies on when you travel? How much clearance to they have?

 

[sinnettc]

Do you leave the dollies on when you travel? How much clearance to they have?

Yeah, they're bolted on - you can see them just behind the hitch on the picture above. I'd say there's about a foot or 18" clearance when the trailer is on the truck.

The trick is that they don't hit the ground before the wheel jack bottoms out - so I take the trailer off the truck, lower as far as the wheel jack will go, raise the trailer a bit with the bottle jack, swing the wheel jack up to the travel position, then lower the rest of the way onto the dolly wheels. Fun stuff on a rough ramp.

 

[Eric M]

Chirs,
We used to trailer sail fixed keel J/24's and used your same launch / retrieve method. I have done this hundreds of times on over a dozen different ramps. The steeper ramps always provided a challenge to get the boat fully on the trailer. It's a geometry problem. The boat is floating horizontal in the water while the trailer is at an angle on the surface of the ramp. On the steep ramps you need to hook up the boat the best you can initially, pull out 5 or so feet and you will usually see that a gap has opened between your bow chock and the boat. Crank the boat forward here and you should be in pretty good shape. Some folks actually modify the bow chock to be adjustable. Move it forward 3 or 4 inches before you load the boat so the keel gets all the way forward on the trailer and then you can slide the chock up tight to the bow once back on level land.
I would also suggest that you raise the keel guides on your trailer vertically, at least half way to the bottom of the hull. As low as they are, the keel is not between them when you start to pull up the ramp. If the boat is not perfectly centered on the trailer, it can come down on the wrong side of the guide. Been there, done that, it was not pretty.
Good Luck,
--Eric

 

[SeaRanch]

When I had a trailerable sailboat (H23) I installed "outriggers" on the trailer.
Mount them at the widest point of the boat (be sure not to exceed state law on width).
Make them tall enough that they are above the water when loading the boat, yes that means they will be well above the deck when out of the water.
When the boat is pulled between the outriggers, it will be in the middle of the trailer.

Eric M's suggestion: "pull out 5 or so feet and you will usually see that a gap has opened between your bow chock and the boat. Crank the boat forward here and you should be in pretty good shape." That is the way I did it also.

I also mounted trailer lights on the outriggers so the were out of the water, no wire splices or connections got wet.

Bill

 

[caguy]

How do you keep dry when winchong in the boat at those depths.

 

[watercolors II]

I'm sorry

The option you do not want is the problem for everything your encountering upon recovering your boat!

The winch must be level or slightly higher than the bow eye!

Forward with a come-along and one of the tow straps will damage the bow eye and you’ll eventually need to purchase a super duty one from Catalina Direct. They always had a replacement, but everyone stresses that bow eye so much that they had to design a heavy duty unit.

With your winch strap attached to the trailer and then through the bow eye, your creating a two to one purchase in addition to the pulling power of the winch, you’re saving your winch but stressing the bow eye.

You can not possibly pull that boat forward with the winch pulling down that much. The eye hitting the chock, the chock is way too low, look at your own photo and envision the boat where it is now and the trailer on an angled ramp.
Upon retrieving the boat the bow eye, after rubbing up over the bow chock, is level with the winch, the front of the hull is sitting on the front pads and the stern is floating above the rear pads. Any additional movement forward with the low winch the front pads will act as a pivot point for the bow to be also pulled down thus lifting the stern. If the winch would still pull up, the bow will not pivot and the stern will sink thus mirroring the launch ramp.

Your trailer must be deep enough for the front pads to be just under water before recovering your boat. Floating the hull up these front submerged pads will place the bow eye about 3 to 4 feet from it’s final resting position. Your 1000 lb. trailer winch attached to the bow eye will not be pulling 2000 lbs. down, it will be lifting 3 or 4 hundred lbs. up and forward towards the winch. It looks like you’re scrapping the bottom paint when dragging the hull across the front pads. With the bow chock placed above the bow eye it creates a stop and an exact positioning guide for the boat to be perfect on the trailer every time.

Look at your trailer’s axle and how it is attached to the trailer frame. Your trailer looks like an after market unit and they allow for the axle to be adjusted for any boat. Extending your winch up will mean that your boat will have to move back maybe 6 inches, move your axle back 6 inches. While you’re having your trailer modified I would add a brace between the front pad stanchions so you can attach your keel guides higher up, because of the angle of the ramp and the hull floating above, it doesn’t look like the keel ever touches the guides.

 

[watercolors II]

My post did not include a couple photos. Lets try this.

 

[JoeWhite]

The bow eye on my Hunter 25.5 was installed only about 8" above the water line and the trailer winch was about another 8" above the bow eye when the boat was loaded on to the trailer - and yes I had to winch in about 5" more after I pulled her out of the water. Judging from the photo that appears in your post - the winch is well below the bow eye. I can say that this trailer is not suitable for this boat. Or you may have to find a way to either install a new bow eye just above the bow roller or raise the location of the winch.

 

[Joe]

I think the quick fix is a removable marker pole ( like a previous poster's outrigger) that slips into a socket on the fender or axle and extends up to deck level of the boat to give you an indication of the boat's position relative to the trailer.

In addition I would consider a higher guide block on the keel step to help the boat settle down to its desired position as the trailer starts taking the full weight at the beginning of haul out.

BTW, I love the Capri 22....

 

[sinnettc]

Thanks guys, lots of food for thought here. I'm going to do a mass answer here 'cuz I'm lazy . . . 8^D

Eric - Bow chock is not movable at the moment. Might be do-able if I take the existing mount off and redesign it a bit though. I've already bent the keel guides once so yeah, raising them, especially the forward section, is on my to do list.

Sea Ranch - I hadn't considered outriggers for this trailer. Was going to put them on the one for the Capri 16.5 that we had before this, but we sold it before I got to that.

CAGuy - I usually DO get wet. When we pulled from the Columbia I had the Admiral on the boat and she hooked up and did the trailer winch from the bow. Wasn't pretty but she got it done. I've also heard of folks using waders, which would work for me if the boat was pulled forward 5 feet.

Watercolors: I definitely agree, I'd like the trailer winch to be at least a foot higher and I think that's one thing I'm going to have to break down and have done (I don't weld). Not sure I understand why the boat would have to move back if I move the winch up?
BTW, I'm pretty sure this is the factory trailer that west coast Catalina dealers provided in 2001; I do think it's somewhat generic, though, so some modification (such as moving axles a bit) is possible.

Paint issues, especially at the bow, are mostly due to the ablative VC17m on it's 2nd year on a race boat, though it does come off where the boat sits on the pads. This is the first day we brought the boat home, so it's also possible that Mike scraped a pad when he retrieved the boat. If you saw a picture of it today there would be quite a bit of paint scraped off an inch or so forward/aft of the pads. Forward from winching it into place, and aft because I pulled it too far forward last year and the first time I pulled this year. When we put the boat back on the trailer at the sling in Anacortes I marked the keel location on the trailer so that doesn't happen again.

Sorry, I wasn't clear on how I use the come along and strap - I don't hook it to the bow eye. The strap goes around the back of the keel (low), the come along gets chained to the upright through the hub hole in the spare tire and then I start pulling the boat forward to the pair of marks I made on the keel skid. SOP for the fin keel boats at our lake.

JoeWhite: "Factory" trailer, but as I said above, I think I'm going to have to do something to raise that winch.

Joe: when you say add a block to the keel step, are you talking about raising the guides that are already there as someone else suggested, or something else that goes on the back of the skid? IIRC someone at the lake has a hinged doodad on the back of his skid for doing that exact thing, though I've not seen how he uses it. And, yeah, the Capri 22 is a blast!

Again, thanks guys for your suggestions and plenty of food for thought for the winter.

 

[Freedom77]

I helped a friend of mine haul his J24 out of Lake Mead some years back. Help meaning I put on my scuba gear and went under to line up the keel with the trailer bed. Even then it was a bear due to wind and no dock. Fair winds....