I suppose it happens to everybody eventually when you trailer boats. A long time ago our daggerboards slid out the back of our boat box as we were going up a hill. Another sailor coming from the same regatta saw them, picked them up and returned them to us.

One time we got off the expressway after a regatta and saw somebody's jib lying beside the off-ramp. We stopped and picked it up and eventually located the owner.

And way, way back, Rick had a whole Tornado (named "Tension") jump off the trailer at 60 mph. It dragged long enough to hone the bottoms down pretty thin. Actually, it was totaled.

So, you would think we would know better by now.

Last spring we were on our way back from Hobie Midwinters East at Pensacola. We were cruising east on I-10 on the Panhandle. A passing truck honked at us and pointed back. We pulled over and checked the trailer. Sure enough, we had lost one of the Hobie Wave mast sections -- the lower aluminum section.

It's expensive to replace, so we got off at the next exit and went back west to look for it. We actually found it, but it had been flattened -- probably by that same truck that passed us.

Rick has always made fun of my overkill hogtying of everything on the trailer, so I let him do it when he's around; but I notice that now he seems to be using more lines and knots than in the past.