In the spirit of telling a yarn of problems overcome....

[William_H]

I relaunched Howzat on Monday afternoon. No 2 son helped put the final antifoul pant on the bottom on sat. A horrible job due to trailer structure rollers etc. I jack the trailer up by about 15cms to give more room underneath.
So just about to drop it down off the blocks after being up all winter. Though I had better check wheel bearings and I found I could not turn one wheel. Got the wheel and bearing off stuck up with rust and gunk. I had a replacement (very old bearing) which I banged. Seems OK 0nly have half Km to the launch ramp max 40kmph.
Ok got the boat to the club ramp with no 2 son's help. Tide was low so ramp seemed steep. Fiddled for ages trying to get the safety chain off the bow attachment. The load of the winch wire jambed it all up. Finally saw the obvious to put winch hook onto bow rail while I disconnected safety chain. I let her go and she unwinds the winch cable as she slides in. I leave the cable out for next time. Poppa (ol'will) is getting a bit confused in his old age
Get ready to raise the mast. Damn forgot to fit wind pointer. Finally got that on despite loss of a little clamp on the pointer post. I hope it survives up there.
I always have trouble getting CB down. It is like a dinghy CB with a foil shape board through a foil shaped hole in the hull at the bottom of a rectangular case. In the process of raising and dropping a few cms until it jambs the old 3 strand polyester rope parted. I tied a knot in the break and finally got cb into it's hole. The knot stopped the CB going down so I cut the rope at the knot. CB went dwon with a huge crash. Fortunately this has happened before no damage. The rectangular shaped CB top is a close fit to the case so water in the case must be squirted out by the larger top as it goes down spraying water around a bit inside. CB stays down all summer.
No problems sailing out of marina. (I hate engines) Back at mooring I have lost skills in picking up buoy over winter. Boat stopped short and we went around only banging one other boat slightly. Granny SWMBO had kindly rowed the dinghy out to the mooring to bring us home.
Now I haven't mentioned 4yo grand son who was on board. A defiant at times little fellow. I had told him not to play with winch handle. (the sea gobbles them Up I told him) so While we were packing up he had the wijnch ahndle in the jib winch. I made a grab fro it and yes you guessed it, it jumped over board. Fortunately granny was still in the dinghy and managed to retrieve the floating winch handle. Yes they do float.
So finally back to the beach. Who has got the keys. We use a electric scooter as a dinghy tow tractor to take dinghy home. UhOh keys left locked inside inside the boat . no problem walk home get spare set of keys and finally get home put trailer and dinghy away. For another season.
I try to maintain habits on the boat like always leave the keys in the 2 padlock joined together so you naturally put the keys in your pocket. All these habits get disconbobulated after a winter boat at home.
Yes went back yesterday found the original keys fixed up this and that. I had a list of more jobs to do. So now all set for Sunday. Sailing is all about crisis management. Fortunately nothing serious this time ol'will

 

[Heckler]

I relaunched Howzat on Monday afternoon. No 2 son helped put the final antifoul pant on the bottom on sat. A horrible job due to trailer structure rollers etc. I jack the trailer up by about 15cms to give more room underneath.
So just about to drop it down off the blocks after being up all winter. Though I had better check wheel bearings and I found I could not turn one wheel. Got the wheel and bearing off stuck up with rust and gunk. I had a replacement (very old bearing) which I banged. Seems OK 0nly have half Km to the launch ramp max 40kmph.
Ok got the boat to the club ramp with no 2 son's help. Tide was low so ramp seemed steep. Fiddled for ages trying to get the safety chain off the bow attachment. The load of the winch wire jambed it all up. Finally saw the obvious to put winch hook onto bow rail while I disconnected safety chain. I let her go and she unwinds the winch cable as she slides in. I leave the cable out for next time. Poppa (ol'will) is getting a bit confused in his old age
Get ready to raise the mast. Damn forgot to fit wind pointer. Finally got that on despite loss of a little clamp on the pointer post. I hope it survives up there.
I always have trouble getting CB down. It is like a dinghy CB with a foil shape board through a foil shaped hole in the hull at the bottom of a rectangular case. In the process of raising and dropping a few cms until it jambs the old 3 strand polyester rope parted. I tied a knot in the break and finally got cb into it's hole. The knot stopped the CB going down so I cut the rope at the knot. CB went dwon with a huge crash. Fortunately this has happened before no damage. The rectangular shaped CB top is a close fit to the case so water in the case must be squirted out by the larger top as it goes down spraying water around a bit inside. CB stays down all summer.
No problems sailing out of marina. (I hate engines) Back at mooring I have lost skills in picking up buoy over winter. Boat stopped short and we went around only banging one other boat slightly. Granny SWMBO had kindly rowed the dinghy out to the mooring to bring us home.
Now I haven't mentioned 4yo grand son who was on board. A defiant at times little fellow. I had told him not to play with winch handle. (the sea gobbles them Up I told him) so While we were packing up he had the wijnch ahndle in the jib winch. I made a grab fro it and yes you guessed it, it jumped over board. Fortunately granny was still in the dinghy and managed to retrieve the floating winch handle. Yes they do float.
So finally back to the beach. Who has got the keys. We use a electric scooter as a dinghy tow tractor to take dinghy home. UhOh keys left locked inside inside the boat . no problem walk home get spare set of keys and finally get home put trailer and dinghy away. For another season.
I try to maintain habits on the boat like always leave the keys in the 2 padlock joined together so you naturally put the keys in your pocket. All these habits get disconbobulated after a winter boat at home.
Yes went back yesterday found the original keys fixed up this and that. I had a list of more jobs to do. So now all set for Sunday. Sailing is all about crisis management. Fortunately nothing serious this time ol'will

Learned a long time ago keys for Fletcher speedboat stay in ignition! Otherwise when time came to launch the cry of where the f k are the keys was heard too often! Got married and was working away in the desert afterwards. Came home, hitched Fletcher on to car and iff to Abersoch, get to bottom of ramp and the call was, yes youve guessed it, where the f k are the keys! New wifey had thought leaving keys in boat ign was not the done thing!

 

[LittleSister]

Ah, keys! Years ago I lived in Bristol and kept a boat on the Exe (about an hour and a half away). On one occasion a particular friend came with me for the weekend, and we arrived at the boat Friday evening only to find I'd left the keys at home. Reckoning that an extra 3 hours drive was less than the time it would take me to repair the hatch if we broke in, we returned to Bristol to get the keys, arrived back at the Exe and drove to the pub (Turf) we'd planned to sail to for dinner, only to find they'd stopped serving food earlier, and we had to make do with crisps and nuts for dinner. By the time we got into the boat we'd done over 5 hours driving (after a days work!). Had a good weekend, though.

A couple of years later same friend was helping me bring my boat back from Salcombe to the Exe. We set off with two cars from Bristol joking, as was now traditional between us, about whether I had the boat keys this time. We dropped off his car at Starcoss (Exe) and drove in mine to somewhere in the wilds of South Devon on the other side of the water from Salcombe, got out to the boat, sailed next day back to the Exe, and rowed ashore. At which point he discovered he'd left his car keys in my car! We had to get his long suffering partner to find a child minder and drive a 3 hours round trip to bring his spare key. She was not best gruntled! We'd been tired when we left the boat. Having then hung around for hours waiting for her arrival, then 4 hours driving to retrieve my car and get home in convoy, it was another weekend when it was good to get back to work on Monday for a rest!

 

[mlines]

Get a spare set of keys cut (boat keys tend to be small and cheap) and put them on your car key ring. Therefore if you have driven to the boat you always have a spare set of boat keys with you - simples!

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

(1) Key for opening the boat is clipped to the car keys
(2) Make sure that the float that is attached to the keys is sufficient to support all the keys. Test in a bucket of fresh water to check the buoyancy.

Two lessons that I learned from the Kindergarten of boating life!

 

[Dan Tribe]

(1) Key for opening the boat is clipped to the car keys
(2) Make sure that the float that is attached to the keys is sufficient to support all the keys. Test in a bucket of fresh water to check the buoyancy.

Two lessons that I learned from the Kindergarten of boating life!

Then order a new electronic key fob ?