CD 25D launch

[CaptPepa]

Greetings, all. After residing in landlocked Nebraska for a little over a year, the CD 25D formerly known as Mickaleen from Punta Gorda FL will again be in her element, albeit fresh water, with launch and christening next Friday. I have a crew of six to accomplish this task, none of whom are CD owners, and half of us have little to no sailboat experience at all. We have a "ginny" pole and a trailer dolly to take the place of a tongue extension. Words of advice? Warnings of obvious problems we might encounter? Supplies that might be helpful? I am anxious to post pictures and stories of a successful launch and wish to avoid video that might go viral due to a catastrophic failure. Looking forward to hearing from some of you.

Thanks,
Bill Wood

[Steve Laume]

Is a trailer dolly something that fits in the hitch and is handled by hand? If that is the case, then the trailer still needs to be chained to the tow vehicle. You might already have all of this figured out but that is a heavy boat and no amount of man power is going to hold it once it starts down the ramp.

A lot depends on your ramp. Finding a long smooth ramp that is deep enough is often difficult. You are going to need to be able to push that boat out into close to 5' of water, to enable it to float off. Most ramps don't extend that far out so you end up with the wheels on whatever natural bottom exists. That could make it difficult to push the boat out far enough. Six guys will definitely help.

Pick a slow ramp day, Steve.

[Nebe]

bottle of champagne or a can of PBR for the christening is a suggested must.... congrats!

as I imagine your situation, you might want a support boat with an outboard engine to use as a tug boat of sorts to help pull the CD 25 away from the ramp while you have your trailer secured to something on land.