Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

[gdeangel]

Have seen it happen a few times, and now finally happened to me.

At the ramp, messing around getting the boat centered with the lines, and trying to hurry up, I just dropped the starboard lines and go to check the port side. Boat's finally centered, so I give the wife a thumbs up and she starts pulling up the ramp and I hear the scraping sound of the rope going under the tire. She just keeps driving and the damn thing doesn't just ruin the line, but it's hanging over my bow rail which gets bent like an elephant sat on it.

And I had just given her the lecture about how to put the line on the cleat running away from the boat so it won't torque the rip the cleat out... at least the cleat stayed in place!

Anyone have some advice to straighten the bow rail? I could take it to a muffler shop with a pipe bender, but I don't even see where to detach it from the hull.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

it might be able to be straightened once its off the boat or a new section welded in. Do you have any pictures of the damage

 

[gdeangel]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail (any ideas how to fix?).

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail (any ideas how to fix?).

it might be able to be straightened once its off the boat or a new section welded in. Do you have any pictures of the damage

I will try to post a picture tomorrow.

I was thinking about it and one way I thought of is to clamp a heavy gauge, straight steel pipe to the rail on either side of the bend, and then try to bend it back in the middle with a strap and come-along, or even one of those one-handed vice-camps. Anyone have some experience with that?

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

depends if its bent or bowed. Bowed you maybe able to fix in place as the material will have only stretched a small amount.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

No help with the damage, but why do you have lines hanging from the boat?

 

[gdeangel]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

Got some pics here. Actually looking at it this morning, the bend follows the deck line so if you just look at that side of the boat, you can't tell what happened. Problem is the other side doesn't match. I guess I could repeat the process with the starboard line!

Also added a pic of the bite it took out of my rub rail. The pinstripe decal got totally marred up as well.

Lines were out for the retrieval. My trailer has about zero tolerance floating on. Lines are stronger than winch strap. Like I said, as is usually the case when this type of thing happens, I was in a hurry and didn't bother to knot it up on the rail right before going to check the other side of the boat. And don't get me started about what your supposed to do if your driving the car and you hear the clatter of your trailer tires pulling your boat lines....

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

I would just use the comealong and see where you get, but it looks like it bent far enough to kink or stretch the rail so there may always be a slight flaw in it even once you have straightened it. I also don't understand what you were doing with the lines and the trailer. I have never needed any lines for any boat when trailering. You probably need to adjust your trailer bunks or avoid backing the trailer in quite so deep. If you are "floating it on", chances are the bunks are too deep underwater which lets the boat/back end float over the bunks.

 

[ricohman]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

I also have no idea why you need lines on both sides of the boat but that looks to be fixable.
I would remove the rail and use wooden blocks once its upside down and body weight. I fixed many soft top bows that have had close encounters with trees this way.

 

[mrchev]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

i would try a 2x4 on its edge on top of the rail and a block of wood on the under side with a c clamp and squeeze.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

with a little creativity you can get it real close. Just try to get a piece of wood so the force goes down on the 2 points that are attached to the boat then use a strap or something that will not kink the pipe and jack it towards the wood. 2x4 or 2x6 with block at either end and a jack strap may work.

 

[gdeangel]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll see what I can do with the 2x4's and the come-along.

To get the picture of why the lines are out, the setup is that the ramp comes down along docks on both sides. So the trailer gets dunked fully for maximum slipperiness, and then positioned at the "magic" depth - just deep enough to muscle it on the bunks, but not so deep I'm floating out over the back bunks (and by "out", I mean the strakes going over the bunk, not the edge of the boat. Seriously I probably have 1/2" margin of error). This is when the normal person hooks on the winch and pulls on the boat with the winch, but I even have the wider 2 1/2" winch strap, with the high torque hand winch, and it's just not possible. So I take a spring line on one side, the wife takes the other side, and the kid takes the winch, and together we get the damn thing up. And with a combination of my foot pushing, and me pulling on rear dock line, I get it centered as we go up. Then it's up the ramp to the edge of the water where I can stand behind (where are the wheel chocks?) and check that the hull is sitting centered. If it's ok, then I usually drive up to the staging area for the rest of the housekeeping. If not, it's back in the water and try again.

Now, unless you think my setup is just ridiculous, I don't have to go through this when the ramp is not as steep. I thought about dropping the height of the trailer ball, but honestly the trailer frame is right currently sitting where it should be for safe towing. So that leaves me on an ongoing search for slicker bunks. I've used spray for bunk carpet, and it helps for a few times, but then it wears off. I have an order in for some plastic glides, but may try with bare wood first. If that fails, I guess I might eventually add an electric winch with a steel cable (I don't think my hand winch is made to take a steel cable, but it's an premium hand winch and it really should work). My winch strap is less than 3 years old, and shows no signs of rot. I don't remember what it was rated for, but the boat is only about 2 tons fully loaded, so theoretically, a 4000 lbs strap should be able to lift the whole thing in the air... I sometimes puzzle over this as I think about what the friction coefficient is between the hull and the bunk carpet.

Oh well, immediate issue is straighten the bow rail.

 

[snowman48047]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

This is when the normal person hooks on the winch and pulls on the boat with the winch, but I even have the wider 2 1/2" winch strap, with the high torque hand winch, and it's just not possible.

Sounds to me like there is another problem...That is what the winch is for. Perhaps guide-ons would be better if you are normally at steeper ramps.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rolling over your lines / ruining your bow rail.

I would possibly look at guide-ons, and maybe adjusting the trailer bunks to better hold the boat in place. You don't need an electric winch or cable, if your winch strap is rated for even half of the boat weight, you'll be fine. However, if you find the winch to be too hard to turn, you might look at a 2-spd winch which has two different gear ratios to make turning the winch crank much easier.