Dry Sailing vs. Not Dry Sailing

[nroose]

Please enter comments on the cost, performance, and convenience of dry sailing a boat vs keeping it in a slip.

Thanks,

Nick

[Bart Toby]

Dry sailing will keep your racing boat lighter over a season of sailing, due to the hull not absorbing water. This happens to all fiberglass boats that are kept in water for any lenght of time. Thats why class boats like the J-24 are all dry sailed. as for the other questions you will have to talk to your harbour master. good luck.

Bart

[dchew]

Dry sailing is much less costly, but consider the practicalness, too.

Wet sailing is SO convenient.

Dry sailing is such a bother. For example, on big race days, you have to wait to use the hoist when other boats beat you to the dock.

But, there is a middle ground. I keep my sailboat on a Hydrohoist. Imagine an underwater trailer that goes up and down in your slip. My hoist lifts all but the last 18" of my keel out of the water. I slip a polybag around the keel and fill it with freshwater. No ''bugs'' grow on my keel, because the water is brackish.

Sure, the boat lift cost as much as my boat, but experienced boat owners know that it isn''t the cost of the boat...it''s the cost of the maintenance that''ll kill you.

By putting your boat on a lift, you can singlehandedly drop/lift your boat in 2 minutes.

The savings will stack up. First, you don''t have to put on any bottom paint every year. Second, you don''t have to waste a weekend every year to work around toxic paint. Third, you don''t have to pay a diver to clean your bottom before every race. I think you get the idea.

Hydrohoist has installed boatlifts capable of lifting 60,000lbs sailboats. The bigger your sailboat, the bigger your annual savings.

Besides Hydrohoist, there are other companies that make boatlifting devices, like Polylift, which I''m found of. So do your research on the web.

Douglas Chew
s/v Challenger
Berkeley, CA