The other day we were driving on a freeway (well, tollway) in Miami and we were behind somebody towing a catamaran sailboat. Couldn't tell exactly what it was, because it had a full cover over it. Maybe a Hobie 20. Very nice. Obviously the owner cares about protecting his boat.

HOWEVER, one small problem. He had left his rudders on, which is not normally a problem, but he had taken off the tiller crossbar between the rudders, so the rudders and rudder arms were just swinging freely around in the breeze.

We followed him through a toll booth that had concrete along the left side as you entered, and we watched as his port rudder scraped along the concrete. And then when he got to the actual toll booth and paid the lady, she noticed the rudder sticking out, so she flicked it over with her hand as it went by. I said, "Oh, no!" because this now put the tiller arm out to port, and the end of the tiller then caught briefly on the exit portal from the booth.

We were anticipating certain disaster for the guy's rudder system. But somehow he lucked through it all.

Rick said, "Now there's a guy who, when he sells his boat, will advertise it as "never raced."

Anyway, we have had numerous incidents and accidents ourselves involving trailering our sailboats, including tilt trailers flying a "hull", trailer tongues breaking and the boat passing the car, flat tires that we don't notice until we see smoke coming from behind our vehicle, daggerboards falling out of our boat box on the road....and a friend lost a jib that fell out the back of his boat box. We have spent more time than we had planned in parts of the country where we didn't want to be, as a result of trailer wheel hubs freezing up because we did not keep them greased.

Highway trailering is a way of life for beach-cat sailors, and probably people have more accidents and more problems related to trailering than to sailing.

So please share YOUR bad trailering experiences -- maybe we can help others avoid them.