First, I've never had my boat on the new trailer, so I wanted to be sure everything fit and there was no risk of damage to the boat. Second, it was getting late and I didn't want to fight a new trailer in deepening dusk. Finally, at this time of year and in the southern middle of the country, the water is pretty darn cold. Not like up North, perhaps, but not something I was willing to wade around in.
So we used the boat club's hoist. The photo above is of the boat on the old trailer, about to be lifted by the hoist.
Now, the last time I had the boat on the hoist was a year ago and there were several other members of the boat club assisting. I didn't recall using different length straps for front and back. So we hit the "up" button on the controller. The result was . . . the boat was nose-down by about 20 degrees!! (See photo below.) It looked like it might slide right out of the slings. Very scary.
Well, no problem. I pressed the "down" button and - nothing happened! Did we pop the circuit breaker? I pressed "up" and the boat moved an inch or so. I pressed "down" - still nothing. Time for frantic calls to the guy who maintains the hoist. No answer. I left voice mail. At this point I'm envisioning my boat hanging in the air, perhaps until the weekend. That's not comforting with a forecast of wind in the 20's. (As I write this the next day, the wind is 17 with gusts to 30!!)
Finally a member of the boat club said there is a safety lock right up at the hoist motor that needs to be reset. Here is my crew resetting the hoist. Notice the "nose down" angle of the boat.
But we got the boat down, put the correct strap around the stern and raised the boat. Swapped trailers and voila!
And here she is, sitting pretty on the new trailer.
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