Trying to find faster ways to set up

[onremlop]

I'm thinking this is a bad idea, but has anyone rigged up a system that allows the sails to remain on while trailering from one place to the next? We are trying to find ways to get set up quicker when going from one location to another and one of the biggest pains is bringing up the boom from below, and putting on the sails. Has anyone added an extension to the boom to hoist the main sail up to the mast and then drop it?

How about loading and unloading the boat from the trailer? Currently, it requires quite a bit of wrench time and was wondering if there was a better way. Our last time pulling it out of the water, we used a hoist and that was quite easy and worked nice, but lots of places don't have lifts.

Any thoughts or ideas would be great.

[Ron]

When I was launching and retrieving the T2 often, I had rigged a line from about 2/3 up the mast to raise and hold the boom during the mast raise / lower process. But you've got to be carefull to make sure that the mast raising line does not hang up on the boom, especially on the way down. In theory, I could have left the main on, but never did. My Kevlar main is not as flexible as the dacron version and would probably complain about it. I think you'd have to have one of the booms with the 2 hinge gooseneck to do it. 359 has this, not sure which was the first. This gooseneck has a 2nd hinge about 10 inches out on the boom for vertical movement only. The hinge near the mast only allows horizontal movement. The sail could live in this area when down. You should be able to see this gooseneck in the photo below.

My boat also has a flexible link with 2 hinges at the top of the head stay, allowing the stay and furling drum to be moved back when lowered. This could also allow a tied up genoa to stay on the wire when raising or lowering the mast. I think I was the first to get this, not sure if Tony was still doing it at the end.

I was also thinking about modifying the four main hull stabilizer bunks to have 2 sizes of pipe that could be pinned together at several points. Release the pressure, lower the bunk 6 inches, pin it there. That would save perhaps 100 cranks of the ratchet wrench up or down. I suppose the ama bunks could take this modification as well. Never did it though. The boat now lives on a 4 post lift in Florida and may never see the trailer again.

I'm using a ComPac Horizon cat boat up north. Mast hinge is above the flaked sail so the sail only leaves the boat only for the extended winter storage. It takes about 10 minutes to launch or retrieve this boat singlehanded.