Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . .


Yes, that's me - 27 years younger and lots more hair. And yes, that's my mother's '72 Olds Delta 88.

You see, my father believed that putting a trailer hitch on the car would ruin the transmission. So I worked around that limitation. With the Thule racks originally bought for my Sunfish.

Here's how it worked - the space between the rack and the roof of the car was was filled with a contour cut 2x4, padded to protect the finish on the roof. This is critical to spread the load out as much as possible and have the roof support most of the load instead of the gutters.

The rudders come off and are in the trunk. The tramp is loosened enough to get the rear crossbar off the pylons. The rear crossbar is slid off the tramp strip w/o completely unlacing the tramp. The sidebars are then slid back about 2" and then folded up like a pair of eyeglasses to the front crossbar. That bundle, with the back crossbar and the bagged sails are in the middle of the roof load. The two hulls lie on their flat sides and the pylons hold everything down. The mast goes along one side and was tied to the bumpers front and back.

Went to a bunch of regattas like this (2 year's worth) and never had a problem.

Oh, yeah - record set-up time? 35 minutes from arrival until in the water.