There is definitly no proper etiquette at the dock by my house :-( It is
like a savage land of beats out there. People will back their boat into the
water and stay right there and open up the engine compartment and start
working on it. Last weekend the TWRA pulled up with soem drunk guy sideways
and blocked anyone from leaving ot entering the ramp. Someone finally blew
their horn and shouted over to them and they moved their boat out of
everyones way.

I agree that I need to dock the boat better and that using the keel guard to
bump the dock intentionally would be a bad plan. However, I think that if I
were to have had the guard that I wouldnt have the damage that I have now.

The big busted area is probably 1 inch across and 3 inches long. Im not
sure if the area above was done by me at the same time or already there. It
is not a blister under the surface but a pushed in place that wasnt strong
enough to break the paint.

I bought some epoxy to fill in the gaps and to keep it from peeling or
getting worse and a white keel guard to cover the area up.

Since my trailer has a beam coming down the middle how will I put a jack in
the middle with the block on top to jack it up? Ive never jacked a boat up
before.

Thanks!
--C

"Rod McInnis" wrote in message
...

"Ree-Yees" wrote in message
.. .

By slow pace I mean barely moving

Either your definition of barely moving is a lot faster than mine or your
boat was very weak (it is possible that there is an issue with the
fiberglass around that area) or the dock has a very shart edge to it!

I nuzzle the bow up to docks all the time and I have never caused damage
like that. I can't quite make out the details (picture is a bit out of
focus) but it appears that there is significant damage over about a 4 inch
area, and then a few inches higher it looks like there is evidence of
previous dock encounters. Perhaps this previous damage allowed water to
saturate the inner layers and caused blisters and/or delamination.


Seems to save alot of time

When you factor in the time its going to take to fix this you may find
that the time savings goes negative....

versus pulling up to the side of the dock, roping it off, back end
swinging out cause im not fast enough, having to pull all around and do
it
again till I get it roped at the dock. Im not the best docker :-)

You should learn to dock the boat! If you do it right, you should be able
to just bring the boat up along side the dock and have it barely touch.
Set
fenders out ahead of time and the boat will never touch the dock. If you
aren't boucning off the dock you should have plenty of time to get out and
tie the ropes unless there is a significant current or one heck of a wind.



With the guard I could just pull up to the ramp and let it bump the ramp
then get out.

No, I don't think that is going to work for you!

The keel gaurds work great on very small boats. I have on on my dinghy
that
protects the bottom when I pull it up on the beach. It can help on a
runabout for beaching it onto soft sand. I sure wouldn't count on it to
provide adequate protection on a concrete ramp. For one thing, if there
is
any significant weight transfered to the keel guard the boat will tip to
one
side and then the chine is grinding into the concrete. For another, you
will be very shallow and your prop will be in harms way.

Besides, I would not consider it proper launch ramp etiquette to block the
ramp for the purpose of loading/unloading passengers.


Yeah Im not too sure its supposed to go up that high either but I got to
fill in that gouge with something! And then that sure would nicely
cover
it
up.

You have some significant repair to do there. As I said above, if that
much
damage was done by hitting a dock at a dead slow speed then it may
idicatate
that the area was already compromised. If this boat is worth a lot then
it
would be in your best interest to have it repaired properly. I am not sure
where this is in relation to the water line, but if you don't get a good
water tight repair then you could end up saturating the inner core with
water and causing all sorts of problems down the road (does it freeze in
the
winter where you are?).



I can take winch cable off and the boat doesnt move.

Let the cable out a foot or two and see if you can slide the boat back.
Caution! Either have the trailer coupled to a tow vehicle or set blocks
under the back of the trailer! When you slide the boat back the tongue
weight can go negative!

If the boat won't just slide back then I would use jacks and blocks to
lift
the boat off the trailer just enough to slide the trailer forward enough
to
get enough room to work.


Rod