Launched!

After a much longer time prepping than I ever expected, the boat is finally on the mooring in Newport Harbor (RI)! My next-door neighbor offered to tow it with his truck, and I followed in my car over to the boat ramp at Fort Adams in Newport, about 20 miles from my house in South Kingstown. Last season, I used the hoist at the Newport Yacht Club to launch, but it took some effort to get the straps positioned since the trailer has bunks. This time, I decided to try ramp launching as the trailer was designed for it. Just in case we couldn't get the trailer deep enough to float the boat without getting the truck wet, I brought heavy-duty wheel chocks and a 20 foot long tow strap to put distance between the truck and trailer once on the ramp if needed.

When we arrived at Fort Adams, I was thrilled to find the boat ramp deserted! It was a beautiful evening with mostly clear skies and about 10 knots of breeze from the southwest. This is typically a very busy site in the season, but on this weekday evening it was quiet. This gave us the opportunity to get the rig up before launching. It took a few minutes for me to identify and run all the halyards. Next year, I'll be more organized, but we got it done. With two of us, it was pretty easy. I had already prepped and connected all the standing rigging, except for attaching the forestay and backstay at the bases.

Once the rig was up, it was time to launch. First, I cranked up the keel so it wouldn't drop as it left the trailer. Fortunately, the stern floated free as the rear wheels of the truck neared the water's edge. The bow was still stuck a bit, but we tied off the bow line to a cleat on the dock alongside the ramp and were able to pull the trailer out from under the boat the rest of the way. Then I disconnected the trailer, thanking my neighbor for his help so he could head home. My little Toyota Corolla can tow the empty trailer just fine, so I hooked it up and parked it in the trailer parking area while I took the boat out to the mooring.

First order of business was checking the keel pivot bolt. I left the PVC drain covers off to see how much the bonded sealing washers leaked. Initially the starboard side was sealed, but once I lowered the keel it began leaking. The port side leaked right away, probably because it didn't seal around the bolt threads well, despite my use of Life Seal there as well. No worries, this is what the PVC drain cleanouts are for, so I simply threaded the caps in place to contain the water. Next, I started my little air-cooled 3.6HP outboard and headed to the mooring. I should have moved closer to the schooner Columbia for pictures as I went by, but I was anxious to get to the mooring and all tidied up before the launch stopped running at 8:00p. I made it just fine and was pleased to find the new gunwhale-mounted bow cleats are big enough for the mooring pennant. The pennant was sized for the Frers 40 and last season I had an issue with Salty Beach since I had to tie off a smaller line to it in order to fit my previous bow hardware; that smaller line nearly chafed through on the pitted chrome of the old bow chocks.

After the launch ride in to Newport Yacht Club on the opposite side of the harbor from Fort Adams, I got a ride from my dad back to my car. As it was getting dark, I checked my trailer lights before leaving. Nothing. Fearing a long drive over two bridges and miles highway in the dark, I opted to take back roads to my dad's house just a few miles away and leave it there until I could fix it the next day.

The next day I returned on lunch break. I had given it some thought and had a pretty good idea what the issue was. I had recently moved the lights from being directly mounted on the trailer, to mounted on a removable board that could be quickly installed and removed as needed to avoid submerging the lights when launching. In doing so, I hadn't considered that the lights use the mounting bolts as the ground connection to the trailer, so I simply made up a short jumper cable for each taillight to bridge between the light mounting bolt and the bolt connecting to the trailer. It worked and I go the trailer home safe.

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