Petrel
Member
What's your fastest, easiest way to tie your SF onto your trailer?
We have one unusual, wide tie down gizmo that came with a beater SF (yet to be fixed up), but it's getting worn. Also when the mosquitoes are out and we come in late, I can't always figure out how to hook it. I'll try to edit this and add a photo or two later.
I'd like to get more like it but can't find anything resembling it. It is about 2.5" wide webbing and comes in two parts. Each of the parts fastens/hooks to part of the trailer side, then the strap pieces come together in the ~ center of the SF then buckle with an unusual folding buckly like thing with about three slots (through buckle's cross piece bars within the buckle), then the other section of about the same length has a folded over loop (I guess just the way the end is finished since we don't need the loop). That finished end gets quickly threaded in and out through the several "bars" in the buckle section and then the connected tie down gets cinched up and the wide buckle "tab" gets folded over. As it does this is lies flat and grips the webbing (well, it did; we've got to tinker with the geometry of it to be sure we're doing it correctly). There is NO RATCHET, but to be sure it's secure and stays put, we take a few hitches around the flattened buckle. We put this wide tie down over the approximate center of the SF. For the bow end, we put the hook of the trailer winch strap through the bow handle, then set the pawl or otherwise secure it.
Sometimes, we can only find junk rope to tie down and get into what I call "half-hitch hell" -- with way to many half hitches. No one would ever steal the boat, they'd be forever untying it.
We also have pails of assored 1" wide colorful webbed tie down with clunky ratchet buckles that surely do hold -- so well that I cannot get them to release consistently. Then I have to find a way to keep the clunky ratchet buckle from banging into the gelcoat. Sometimes these tie down decide to get too cozy with one another and turn into a urethane coated hook, webbing and ratchet orgy. If the weather is hot and muggy or the mosquitoes are around, my sailor's poetry comes out.
I've seen 20' for $20 tie down at Annapolis (apsltd) that go "around" the boat hull (and I guess, the trailer as well, and, I assume can be fastened to the trailer). Looks like these also have a ratchet block. (Think this is long enough to go around the fish and trailer?). The specs don't give the width.
Any of you want to share you fuss and half hitch hell free way to tie your SF or Zuma onto your trailer at the center. Do you put foam or handwoven prayer rug scraps at the gunwales? How snug?
Thanks
We have one unusual, wide tie down gizmo that came with a beater SF (yet to be fixed up), but it's getting worn. Also when the mosquitoes are out and we come in late, I can't always figure out how to hook it. I'll try to edit this and add a photo or two later.
I'd like to get more like it but can't find anything resembling it. It is about 2.5" wide webbing and comes in two parts. Each of the parts fastens/hooks to part of the trailer side, then the strap pieces come together in the ~ center of the SF then buckle with an unusual folding buckly like thing with about three slots (through buckle's cross piece bars within the buckle), then the other section of about the same length has a folded over loop (I guess just the way the end is finished since we don't need the loop). That finished end gets quickly threaded in and out through the several "bars" in the buckle section and then the connected tie down gets cinched up and the wide buckle "tab" gets folded over. As it does this is lies flat and grips the webbing (well, it did; we've got to tinker with the geometry of it to be sure we're doing it correctly). There is NO RATCHET, but to be sure it's secure and stays put, we take a few hitches around the flattened buckle. We put this wide tie down over the approximate center of the SF. For the bow end, we put the hook of the trailer winch strap through the bow handle, then set the pawl or otherwise secure it.
Sometimes, we can only find junk rope to tie down and get into what I call "half-hitch hell" -- with way to many half hitches. No one would ever steal the boat, they'd be forever untying it.
We also have pails of assored 1" wide colorful webbed tie down with clunky ratchet buckles that surely do hold -- so well that I cannot get them to release consistently. Then I have to find a way to keep the clunky ratchet buckle from banging into the gelcoat. Sometimes these tie down decide to get too cozy with one another and turn into a urethane coated hook, webbing and ratchet orgy. If the weather is hot and muggy or the mosquitoes are around, my sailor's poetry comes out.
I've seen 20' for $20 tie down at Annapolis (apsltd) that go "around" the boat hull (and I guess, the trailer as well, and, I assume can be fastened to the trailer). Looks like these also have a ratchet block. (Think this is long enough to go around the fish and trailer?). The specs don't give the width.
Any of you want to share you fuss and half hitch hell free way to tie your SF or Zuma onto your trailer at the center. Do you put foam or handwoven prayer rug scraps at the gunwales? How snug?
Thanks
