belay trailer down slipway?

ProDave said:
Is there a winch on your trailer?

There is on mine, and to avoid dunking the car in the drink, once I have gone as far as I can keeping the car wheels dry, I unhitch and lower the trailer the last bit by winding it down with the winch on the trailer. you are at the front of the trailer so can steer it if you need to (though a 4 wheel trailer does tend to naturally keep in a straight line)
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When I am sailing on the local lake, I launch like this http://bit.ly/1aimIJr

However I am reluctant to have my car at the waters edge on a tidal slipway as I am concerned that it might be very slippy.
 
onesea said:
If I had to buy for the purpose:
http://www.westwardropeandwire.co.uk/polypropylene-rope-3-strand-blue-18mm.html
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Polyprop melts quite easily so perhaps not the best choice for a friction job like this - but then again the rope I lowered my mate's motorboat down on was black polyprop and no problems there.

(Apart from a painter in old 6mm dinghy braid, the pair of 9mm polyprop "mooring lines" are the only cordage on his boat, and that only because I gave them to him :) )

Pete
 
I converted a road trailer to a launch trolley with a fixed front wheel. It worked a treat.


launchtrolley01.jpg
 
prv said:
Polyprop melts quite easily so perhaps not the best choice for a friction job like this - but then again the rope I lowered my mate's motorboat down on was black polyprop and no problems there.

(Apart from a painter in old 6mm dinghy braid, the pair of 9mm polyprop "mooring lines" are the only cordage on his boat, and that only because I gave them to him :) )

Pete
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From memory Polyprop is good to about 100 c so I figured your having pretty bad day if you get to that, if your worried wet it first...
 
prv said:
Indeed, it's intended to take much bigger loads!
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Oh aye?

Descenders are generally intended to take the load of 1 person - with a factor of safety again, generally, 5:1. Some late 70's designs were overbuilt purely for heat absorption, but never intended for much bigger loads as you say.
Because of the factor of safety, and because of the loads being mitigated by the slip, then it would be ok for the OP's purpose.
 
afterpegassus said:
Oh aye?

Descenders are generally intended to take the load of 1 person - with a factor of safety again, generally, 5:1. Some late 70's designs were overbuilt purely for heat absorption, but never intended for much bigger loads as you say.
Because of the factor of safety, and because of the loads being mitigated by the slip, then it would be ok for the OP's purpose.
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Decenders i have are rated 8 metric tonne!
 
I wouldn't like to say and I'm not sure what your alluding to. I stated previously that I thought a descender was capable of doing what the op suggested - having a fos of 5:1, that is a breaking point 5 times its intended load.
 
MCL said:
Looks good, did it need any input to keep it tracking straight down the slipway?
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No. I used it on a rocky shale beach landing.
I could actually just let go the safety chain and ride down on the drawbar, jumping off at the water's edge. Don't forget to have a painter and a line to the trolley as well or you'll end up getting very wet.
 
I think OP would find that it does not need much to stop the trailer from running away. A turn of rope around a handle as said would be sufficient to moderate the roll. He would not want to stop it too much for fear it might not want to roll again. Even if it goes too fast it will slow down gracefully as the wheels hit the water. good luck olewill
 
I'd use a decent non stretch rope myself. Polyprop if used dynamically in any sort of friction brake will not perform well (ie it will risk melt, strength loss and subsequent catastrophic failure!!). A climbing friction device like fig 8 or belay plate may not be the best choice as it relies on a downward pull (or rather a pull on the rope down in the same direction as the active rope enters the device) to activate the friction. A Gri GRi or similar would work but they're blinking expensive.
 
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