Strapping down the DS when towing?

[patco]

How do you prepare your boat for the road?

The eyelet at the bow is broken, so I've been doing the following:

1)Ratchet a rope off to the bow cleat on the topside, connected to the trailer ratchet.

2)Run a ratchet strap around the girth of the boat, just aft of the cuddy

3)Loop two ratchets around the mast at the bow (anchored to the trailer frame) and stearn (anchored to the rudder eyelet).

Is the second ratchet around the girth necessary, or do you just need to hold it to the trailer at the bow and let the weight of the boat keep it on the trailer?

What do y'all do?

[GreenLake]

I had a broken bow eye and replaced it. (Not sure whether this thread si DSII specific in nature, mine is a DS1 and replacing the bow eye with a standard part from a boating store was easy, except for the awkward reach to the front).

For towing: I keep the trailer winch attached to the bow eye. I also loop a line from the bow eye around the winch post and back to the cleat on top of the foredeck. These go on, before I move the trailer out of the water. Wrapping the painteris mostly a way of stowing it, but it also guards against the winch pawl becoming disengaged.

I then use two ratchet straps to tie the boat to the trailer. One goes over the aft third of the cockpit, both sides connected to eyelets near the end of my trailer, I use a quite bit of padding under the strap, since I have the full height wood coamings. At this point, the boat is secured well enough for extended parking lot maneuvers.

To go on the road I always add a second ratchet strap in the front. It goes over the foredeck. It would slide off towards the front, except that I hook it under the aft end of the cleat. The ends are hooked into some convenient holes in the trailer frame. So this strap ends up pulling both down and forward.

You can't rely on the weight of the boat, because any strong bump will send it airborne and it could fly off the trailer (or shift/twist on the trailer).

Even tied down like this, I've managed to shift my boat once, by running a curb with some speed. Just a couple of inches sideways movement, but enough to let the CB jump of the roller it was resting on. It promptly dropped a few inches, making it impossible for me to shift the boat back onto the roller.

A friendly passer-by and a paddle did the trick in the end.

By using single loops of strap over the whole boat, instead of pairs of left/right straps, the boat has more of a chance to twist and to move side to side by a small amount. Just means that you need to be able to stop and inspect the rig when you hit a larger bump (like a curb).

Mast: mine rests on two crutches. One is fitted with pintles and goes where the rudder goes. The other sits in the mast step. The mast is secured primarily by a line around between the two cleats on the aft end of the cuddy and the mast. This line will hold the mast down in the forward crutch. It's wound around the mast once, and should also hold it from trying to go forward.

Back of the mast is tied to the crutch, so it can't jump off, and to the boat, so the crutch can't be pulled off. Bungees for now, but something less stretchy might be better here.

Finally, in the front, I wrap the painter around the mast, as it comes off the forward cleat. It cuts down on the swinging of the forward end of the mast, and adds a second line to resist the mast going off as a missile on a sudden stop.

This evolved from the way I took over the boat, but I'm the first to admit that I have no particular claim to having found the best system. I never tow for more than about an hour, if I went longer stretches, I might do a few things differently.

[ChrisB]

I use a 2" nylon strap over the boat at the back 1/3 of cockpit to the trailer on each side. I run the bow dockline from the cleats at the bow under the trailer and back up to the cleat (in addition to the winch at the bow eye). Mast is supported by the winch post at the front and on a homemade light bar across the stern. Light bar is a 2x4 with the trailer lights and license plate mounted on it and has a "U" shaped support in the middle for the mast to sit in. For long trips, I also use a "spring line" from the jib sheet fairlead to the forestay attachment point on the mast and back to the other jib sheet fairlead to keep the mast from sliding backwards.

[ctenidae]

I don't have a bow eye (another design difference for dating?), so I hook winch strap to the foredeck cleat. 2 inch nylon ratchet straps wherever it's convenient, and away we go.

[talbot]

A bow eye replacement is a pretty common procedure. It's awkward, but not especially tricky. It seems as if most older DS's I've looked at have had it done. There are descriptions in Roger's book, but basically, you install an inspection port in the forward bulkhad or the top deck, tunnel through the floatation foam, repair any obvious damage with marine epoxy, and install a stainless u-bolt. All sorts of things become easier with a reliable bow eye: towing, anchoring, docking, launching, retrieving, and jockeying the boat on the trailer for maintenance.