"SteveB" wrote in message
...

"Wizard of Woodstock" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 00:19:40 -0600, "SteveB"
wrote:

http://www.stupidvideos.com/video/st...t_Launch_Fail/

Whoopsie....

Looks to me that the stern swung in and landed on the handrail, but the
crane operator kept going down. I ran a crane on an offshore drilling rig
for a few years. I would have had two tag lines, one bow, one stern, to
prevent just such spinning. Well, not prevent spinning, but give a way to
keep the boat straight as the natural tendency of the rigging has to twist
once a load is put on it. But it has two basket rigged slings, so don't
know if the spin is caused from the cables above the spreader bars, or
what. It looks like there are no tag lines period. Should have been tag
lines, and it seems there was no communication, as a good ground pounder
would have yelled all stop when the boat first hit anything. Some signal,
some radio call, something.

Steve

Is that what you call 'em...'tag lines'?
When I belonged to a 'self help' local military yacht club back in the 80s,
everyone was expected to show up on launch day to help out.
A modest fee was charged to use the big base crane but the members had to do
all the grunt work.
I spent a morning helping control numerous launchings of medium to fair
sized sailboats and not one problem.