Tornado Damage

CarpeAquam · #1 01-30-2013

I woke up to my sailboat thrown off its trailer, other boats flipped, a dock 50 yards from where it was, trees sheared, holes in the roof, power lines down, and more…

The stern pulpit is bent in, everything inside is a mess, but amazingly I haven’t been able to find structural damage. The next challenge is getting a 3000 pound boat back in the water! The trailer is bent up and pinned under the boat, but should be usable. However, I'm worried that rolling the boat back on the trailer will either break the axle, collapse the trailer beyond repair, or crack the hull of the boat. I'm not sure how a crane would be able to fix it as it is now, but I know that would be expensive too.

My plan is to wait until Saturday and then see how feasible it would be to slowly (if possible) roll it back on the trailer. Has anyone done anything like this before? Any suggestions?

msmith10 · #2 01-30-2013

Sorry for your problem. Would it be prudent to call your insurance agent before trying to right it? Just asking.

mad_machine · #3 01-30-2013

get your insurance people involved first.. then I would see about raising the boat up enough to get her OFF of the trailer. you can then get somebody in there to jack her up enough to get her back onto a new or repaired trailer the right way

CarpeAquam · #4 01-30-2013

Forgot to mention... I'm uninsured. I bought it outright for $900 and just haven't gotten around to getting insurance. I'm feeling pretty dumb about that right now....

mad_machine · #5 01-30-2013

ok.. well, right now, leaving her like that is not going to make anything worse.

What kind of boat is it.. and what kind of keel? If she is a centreboarder.. I would get some 4x4s under her with a big hydraulic jack and slowly raise her off of the trailer so you can remove it. then put her back on her bottom upright.

If she has a keel of any sort.. you will need to figure out some way to stablize her and keep the weight off of the keel.

Once you get a new trailer or the old one fixed.. it will be simple to jack her up and slowly slide the trailer underneath

CarpeAquam · #6 01-30-2013

It is a Starwind 22 (same as chrysler or tmi) with a 600 pound iron swing keel.

mad_machine · #7 01-31-2013

so it swings up into it's trunk flush to the hull? Was looking at your yard.. all that grass, you might be able to get her off of the trailer and drag her to the water.

bljones · #8 01-31-2013

two jeeps, two winches, a couple of snatch blocks, soft recovery straps and one cameraman to capture it for youtube and the boat will be back on the trailer in no time.

Faster · #9 01-31-2013

As a swing keel your problems are much smaller than they might have been.. but wow.. must have been something to wake up to!

CarpeAquam · #10 01-31-2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by bljones

two jeeps, two winches, a couple of snatch blocks, soft recovery straps and one cameraman to capture it for youtube and the boat will be back on the trailer in no time.

Sounds like my original plan... I have one auto winch and a heavy duty manual winch. If I put one from a tree to the boat and pull it towards the trailor I could use the second one to make sure it doesn't come down all at once. As long as the stress isn't too much for the trailer it should work.