This is a page dedicated to the folks at Austin Yacht Club who have spent over a quarter million dollars by doing this!
| It is real simple folks. When you back your precious sailboat down a steep
hill it is a very good idea to secure the boat to the trailer. If you don't
secure the boat the trailer, it might slide off the trailer before you want it
to slide off the trailer. The folks who participated in the attempt to launch this particular boat have each been present when I have delivered my warning about how important it is to tie every boat to its trailer before backing down a ramp. The trailer and boat were delivered to Austin Yacht Club just one year ago with a dedicated keel restraining line tied and DUCT TAPED in place. The dedicated safety line was made of 1/2 inch braided nylon. Somebody decided to remove the line. Nobody bothered to replace the line. Nobody was injured or killed. Pure luck!! The photos below are of restraining systems I installed on two J-22 trailers. The owners of these boats have had the sense to maintain the system and to use the system. The boat can only move aft when it floats over the device.
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| While taking photos for this webpage I drove through the AYC dry storage area
where about 100 keelboats are stored. The two restraining systems pictured were
the only restraining systems on any of the trailers. The rest of the trailers
are simply disasters waiting to happen.
I have personally left restraining ropes on a least a few dozen of those trailers. Rather than maintaining and using the ropes to launch more safely, the owners of most of the boats have chosen to remove the safety systems and endanger the rest of us. It is not a surprise to anyone that this boat slid off this trailer. Since 1982, the following boats have slid off trailers on to the AYC ramp. (Note: This is just my quick recollection list. There are certainly others.) If they didn't hit the ramp before they got to the water, they didn't make this list. J-24 Shadowfax J-24 Ammo Box J-24 Jet Stream J-24 Bon Temps Catalina 27 Merit 22 Pearson 26 slid backwards 30 to 50 feet on its steel keel and fell over in 2 feet of water for no real damage Ranger 23 Ranger 26 Capri 22 bounced down the ramp five minutes after assuring me the "tie down was unnecessary." Thistle at least three Laser Too many to remember rigged and blown over backing down ramp Kiwi 24 Sweet Vibrations Merit 25 Dragon Red and others South Coast 21 Annual tradition for a fleet designate? Ensign Holder 20 The club's Whaler, pontoon boat, and main committee boat Fireballs, M-20s, A Force Five, a Windmill, a Flying Scot and even a couple Optis
I will be there with my camera when you drop the next one...Unless of course it is the one that falls on me and kills me.
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