So I spent Saturday washing and waxing the boat, had and spent Sunday practicing my tacks. I suck at tacking, but that's another issue. I need to read the copy of Cat Sailing for the 90's that I found at half price books.

Everything was great until it came time to put the boat away. I got everything all packed up and secured and headed towards the mast up storage lot. 500 feet from the water. I was able to navigate an entire parking lot of tree branches and manage to hit one less than 100 feet from my parking spot.

It happened a little something like this.

<rattle rattle rattle>
"hmm my rig is making a lot of noise"

My eyes bug out of my head as I look back in my rear view mirror to see my bow come crashing down on one of the trailer rollers.

Doesn't appear to be any visual damage to the mast, have a dent in my starboard hull from the roller. It's not soft or anything. Quite frim. Just an ugly dent. I know some of the guys I sail with have dents from race collisions.

This sucks. I was being super careful and thought I was in the clear.


And because I'm ridiculously paranoid. I will probably drive out to the lake on my lunch break and drop the mast until I have a chance to go buy new shrouds and bow tangs.

it sounds like you were trailering your boat without strappin/tieing it down.... that is a scary.

Also the fact that you have mast up storage available.. but there are overhead obstacles... that is a lawsuit in the making... good thing your cat didnt fall off the trailer and hit another boat/car or person....

At least it wasn't one of those Marstrom hot rods.

I guess we're all allowed the occasional moment of stupidity.

Being a small inland lake in a state park, the trees are par for the course. I should have plotted my course before towing the boat through the parking lot with the mast up. Other than some dings and dents where the roller hit it , it seems ok.

Completely unnecessary...lifting the boat up off the trailer by the mast puts no severe loads on the rig...that's what it does everytime you fly a hull. Just assess/repair the hull ding and go sailing!