Need to transport a sailboat? Then you need a cradle of a certain width. Wish I'd asked sooner. Here I am finishing up on narrowing the first two supports so the base will fit on the trailer without needing a crane to load the boat. Compromises compromises. Notice the column of building blocks, heavy wood and hydraulic jack. That's how I adjusted the hull height. The only thing I need to add, is that getting the frame off the ground initially involved crowbars and wedges for the first inches. Then the hydraulic jack came into play.
New cradle built and awaiting a ride to the yard in Sodus Bay 18 miles East.
Truck and trailer arrive. Boat cradle exactly twelve inches off the ground. Loading involved tilting the trailers bum down a few inches using hydraulics at the tow hitch end. There is a central "car", on roller bearings that can run the length of the trailer. That car gets placed under frame. The hydraulics then tip the tail up taking the entire load of the back of the boat. The aft blocks are removed. the trailer backs up with the car sliding towards the front of the trailer When the backing trailer gets to the front blocks, another hydraulic tip to raise the tail end, out with the last blocks and its 9/10th's on the trailer A quick jerk with a winch on the cradle, and it's loaded. Scary huh? I thought so!
Off to Sodus Bay. Clearance height is exactly 12ft 2" loaded. It's perhaps just a couple of inches wide to be strictly "legal". Close enough.
Easy does it down the lumpy private road. Tree clearances were marginal, but made it.
Unloading using the travel-lift at Sodus bay
In the yard at last. She's not that big after all.Time for a stiff shot to steady the ol' nerves.
After enduring 3 months of thunderstorms, and no chance to paint the hull, it was into the now empty boat storage sheds. I figured painting would take me a week to 10 days. Well 4 weeks later I was still at it. Long-boarding and random orbital sander. Roll on two coats of epoxy, sand it flat. In the end it was well worth the effort though. I have ne a Green Witch.
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