Rocking horse or Rocking boat

[EASLOOP]

My wooden sloop lives on a trolley all winter. In the spring boat and trolley are winched into the water and when the tide is full the boat sails off to her moorings. I leave my wooden boat on the trolley for three tides just to make sure no serious leaks developed due to drying out.

So, there I am standing in the cockpit as the first tide ebbed away. Went to walk forward to close the hatch when the boat tilted forward coming to rest at about 15 degrees declination. Could not see what had happend so had to wait until tide had gone to see. When she tilted she was hard on the trolley and could not be moved. Seems the forward support bar on the trolley had broken letting the boat rock forward. Concerned what would happen when the tide came back in I ended up with my friend, my daughter and her boyfriend down the club at midnight to check her out (notice the wives stayed home). She rose off the trolley nicely but I decided to leave her in place (no experienced people nearl by). Thankfully she settled back in the same (precarious) position again. Sailed her off on Saturday undamaged.

When the boat first slipped it was as though I had been given several squares of hot Exlax in one go!!!

 

[William_H]

Ah I know what you mean. Many years back I had a catamaran with a 12 ft beam. To repaint the bottom (no tide) we put it on a slipway at a nearby club. It seemed to fit jambed between the angled uprights of their largest cradle.
The cradles were hauled up a rail about 40 metres quite step. The cradles were fitted with side ways bogies so that about 12 cradles and positions were available.
Anyway come launching time the cradle was put onto the main in out rail and the winch brake released.
The crew were on the boat about 10 ft off the ground and the cradle and boat (seemed) to get up quite a speed, rocking and bouncing down the rail. What was not obvious was that the wheels hit the water first and provided a gentle deceleration but until then it was quite terrifying. boats are tough olewill

 

[Avocet]

Our first keel boat was a Leisure 17 bilge keeler. These sit the "wrong" way round on their trailers - i.e. nose facing rearwards. One day, I decied to turn the trailer round by hand in the garden and lifted the hitch a bit too high off the ground. The boat "launched" itself into the lawn and sat there balanced on its stemhead and the leading edge of each keel. That gave me a "brown truser moment" I can tell you! Eventually, I managed to winch it back up using a couple of 5 ton ratchet straps but it took a few hours!