My father-in-law offered to give me this 1982 CD 25D if I would come a get it. It had been in the slip in Kemah Texas for at least the last 8 years with minimal care (I'm still not sure when the last haul-out was). I decided to do the move myself, being a do-it-yourself kind of guy. Had trouble securing a trailer that would handle it, but finally had one built in Texas by a guy there. So I drove over on Friday week before last, spent the night in Slidell LA and motored into Houston expecting to go get the trailer. Called my trailer guy who said "not ready. Might be by late tomorrow, but for sure I'll bring it to you Monday morning". "I'm just down the road". I spent Sunday dropping the mast with a home-made A-frame rig I designed from searching and reading posts going back some 300 pages. It worked like a charm and by 5PM Sunday I had the mast strapped and secured to the 2X4 braces I had cut for the rails fore and aft. I also off-loaded all weight possible because I was using a Nissan Armada to tow and wanted to put more weight in the truck to even out the overall weight.
On Monday morning my trailer guy called to say I would need to come get the trailer, so I headed that way. This was at 8:30am and I was supposed to meet BoatUS towing Capt. at 9am to tow the CD over to the lift; about 200 yards away. (I did this because I wasn't comfortable starting the engine after all these years and potentially losing control in the marina). Once I got to the Trailer, it wasn't quite ready...no lights. I had to go, so I asked the guy to follow me to the marina and put the lights on there, which he was OK with. We ran there and I jumped on the boat with Capt. BoatUS who took me to the slip where Callipygian was ready to go.
It took less than 10 minutes to tie and tow her to the lift and when we got there, the yard manager asked me to throw one of my dock line to him from the stern. As I stepped into the cockpit, one of the mast shroud cables caught my cell phone and flipped it about 12 feet over my head and into Clear Lake.
(Are we off to a good start, or what?) I shrugged it off because there were still so many other things to do. We hauled her, cleaned her, and loaded her on the trailer. I was fortunate that there was a guy there doing a long-haul of a 45 foot boat on a semi-rig who assisted in getting my boat correctly placed on the trailer and suggesting that I have higher pressure tires put on the trailer as soon as possible (my trailer guy had only put "Max load 1235#" tires on and "John" suggested at least 2000# was needed) My trailer guy offered to change out what was on there to the highest he had and I took his offer....we needed to go back to his shop anyway because the two trailer lights he had wired on didn't work. Once we got to his shop about 5 miles away, we noticed that the boat had crushed the bow roller they had installed (I had asked for a "V", not a roller), so we had to take a 6-ton bottle jack and carefully lift the bow enough to put a new, more beefy roller on. Once that was done, we jacked up trailer and boat one side at a time and replaced all four tires with the best he had: 3 rated to 1550# and one at 1700#. He asked me if I wanted a spare tire for an extra $50. I hesitated for a minute, then said yes. I would later be extremely glad I did. While he got the lights to work, I put two straps across the fore and aft ends of the boat and cranked them tight. 3 hours late, I's now 2:30 pm and I'm looking for a Verizon store to buy a phone: I don't want to be on the road without that lifeline! By 3:30 pm I'm getting out of Houston and I'm watching the boat HUGE in my rearview mirror. At least the Armada was easily able to tow the package. The trip was uneventful and I drove until 1 am so I could be near Pensacola when I pulled off the road and slept for about 3.5 hours. I was up and moving at 4:30 am hoping to beat the rush hour traffic in Tallahassee. Except for finally blowing one of the trailer tires 90 miles out of Tampa (glad I bought the spare!), I made it home to Treasure Island safe and sound. She looms large in my driveway, but I'm now able to begin some much needed restoration. Amazingly, the bottom didn't look bad and after a week of being on the hard, I've seen only a couple of tiny water bubbles behind the paint.Thanks to all for advice and wisdom. I know I couldn't have/wouldn't have succeeded without your hep! She'll be back in the water in a few short weeks!
