Good luck to those in FL

[Markst95]

I'm going on the other side of the trailer debate. I trailer sailed an oday daysailer before getting my typhoon. It gets pretty old to have to raise\lower the mast every time. I'm 1 1/2 hours away from the shore so going down for the day and then having to spend another 1 1/2 to 2 hours getting the boat ready/putting it back on the trailer doesn't give me much sailing time. Also with the price of gas I'm not planning on ever buying a vehicle that could tow it, so I'd have to rent a truck. If you use it just for winter storage theres still registration, new tires, repacking bearings, ect. I'd rather spend the time working on the boat. The closest marina charges about $400 for hauling, pressure washing, winter storage and spring launch. I'd rather let them do it and not have to worry. I just bought my typhoon and trailered it home 100 miles. It is nice to be able to work on it at home but come next spring after the boats launched the trailer will be up for sale!

[Sea Hunt]

Lew, Bill, Russell, Mark and all:

Lew, I absolutely deny calling the marina (actually the sailing club) to check on S/V Tadpole, although I did think about it. It would not have done any good anyway. She was tied (hidden) into mangroves about 1 mile south from the club. You could not see her with a long range scope

Russell, those are good points. I have an older Chevy truck with an older big block 8 cyl. (that runs perfectly) and could trailer a Ty Weekender locally from Biscayne Bay to my house. The house is on a fair size piece of land in unincorporated Dade County without restrictions about storing boats, etc. on the property. My neighbor has had two boats in his backyard for years. He NEVER uses them.

Lew and Bill, my reservations about a trailer have to do with cost benefit and "task loading". I would only really use the trailer in an emergency situation (i.e. a hurricane warning). Mark, I would not be using the trailer for daily launch and retrieval. You are right about that being a real pain (at least for me). I see folks doing it a lot at Matheson Hammock Marina where I "race" on Saturdays. It is 2 man job minimum.

Used rarely, the trailer would therefore have to be a quality trailer that I know would work without any glitches when I needed it. Paying for a quality trailer that I pray I won't use just does not seem cost effective. I could easily be wrong.

As for "task loading", I am still a rookie/tadpole sailor. I have my hands full learning to handle S/V Tadpole singlehanded. I just got a "hurricane prep 101 class" in securing a sailboat in mangroves. I still have much to learn. I do not want to have to learn (and practice) trailering a sailboat. I have NEVER trailered anything in my life, ever. I have friends who have trailered boats, big boats, for years. Asking them for help in March, when its cool and sunny, etc.and no hurricanes on the horizon, is one thing. Asking them to take 4-5 hours out of their hurricane prep time in Aug/Sep with a hurricane bearing down on South Florida, to help me with trailering a sailboat is, given my personality (independent, self-reliant, unwilling to impose on others), something I am unwilling to ask of them, albeit they are friends of many years standing and would do so without hesitation.

Securing S/V Tadpole in the mangroves was a good learning experience. I plan to do some additional recon of the mangroves and try to find a better spot - perhaps the one I saw the other day that I mistakenly thought was too shallow. I will also reconfigure my lines (shortening some of them) to allow for more tiedowns into the mangrove roots. I still have to work out accounting for storm surge which is unpredictable but can be anywhere from 2-3 ft to 15-20 ft.

While TS Fay was a mild TS by all accounts, I am told all of the boats in the mangroves the past few days survived without incident. Club members who have been doing this for years report that no boats have ever been badly damaged in the mangroves, even with Katrina, Wilma, etc. One sailor said he had his sailboat in these mangroves for Hurricane Andrew (Cat. 5, landfall 24 August 1992 @ 0405 hours) with sustained winds of 165 mph and higher and he came back to find her with only very minor damage to the rubrails, scratches, etc. I have no idea whether he was spinning a tail or reporting the facts. If true, pretty amazing, given the destruction at marinas that I saw following Andrew.

All in all, yet another an educational learning block for an old, fat out of shape tadpole sailor.

[Troy Scott]

Sea Hunt:

I am SOOOO happy to hear your little Tadpole is OK!!!
I'm not too surprised the bilge was dry. My Typhoon was the only boat I've owned that always had a bone-dry bilge. When I finally sold her (big mistake) , she still had original construction dust in the bottom of the bilge. Of course that was about 1981......

[Bob DuPont]

I need to say something here in Sea Hunt's honor, as a fellow member of Coconut Grove Sailing Club and fellow sojourner among the mangroves during TS Fay's visit. Robert handled all with aplomb -- though I must also acknowledge his anxiety.

And he undersells his abilities in seamanship. On the trip back from the mangroves to the club, I was just ahead of him in Pelican and the winds were clocked by the anemometer at Fowey Rocks at 32 knots, gusting to 38, out of the SW. And the rain in the squall was falling so heavily that visibility was about 10 to 20 yards from the cockpit for about 15 minutes. He and Tadpole came through perfectly lined up on the channel into the club -- so I suppose one could say that Robert has graduated from "tadpole" status, though I bet he demurs.