Okay it sounds stupid, but what I am wondering is IF I disassemble the Hobie and want to carry the pontoons and the mast and boom on the roof of my Town and Country minivan does anyone see a problem with this for a loooooong journey? Also I am looking for information on a front hitch for a 1997 Town and Country. I've got an idea for a hitch extention that will allow me to carry a long load on the roof. I want to carry a 26 foot sailboat mast. Does anyone know how/where to look for the front hitch unit?

Thanks
Greg
P,S, I really want to thank you all. I am really enjoying reading and learning from you all. Great ideas and keep up the great work!

For your hitch you can go to any of those 2 web sites and look for the distributors in your area.

http://www.bageco.com/
http://www.hiddenhitch.com/Home/

As far putting Hobie on the top of your car I see no problem if you can come up with some innovative way of attaching it to the roof of your car. But watch out for the windy days and your driving speed. You do not want to collect pieces of your boat from the road.

Just my 2 cents.

Kris

Thanks Kris. The wind is my biggest worry. Maybe on the windy days I'll find a motel with a pool! I'll look into the websites you listed.
Thanks again,
greg

I don't know Greg:

I can see lashing down the pontoons on top of the minivan (I have a Ford Windstar), but what about the Mast? This is really long and you need two points near the ends to lash them down and keep stable.

I make sure I have my bearings greased and checked at the beginning of every season, and I've put thousands of miles on a trailer while traveling to a Regatta. When we get to a hotel, I just unhitch it and try to find a restaurant. Why add more stress to your life?

Good luck,

Wyatt

There may be a problem caring a H16. Check the load limit for your roof rack. Most factory systems have a 100-200 lb limit. If you are using Yakima or Thule, call them. Going 50% over is normally not a problem. Going 100-300% may be a problem. You might be able to add a door mounted rack to a factory rack to distribute the load

Caring a catamaran on roof rack, can be done. I have done it for short distances. I have seen an A-class and mast carried on a roof rack from Key Largo to California and a Tornado with mast on a full sized Van with "ladder racks". I have also seen the roof of a Dodge minivan cave in when the owner tried to put 200-300 lb of 2x4's on it

Do your homework at home, not on the side of the road 3 hours from home.

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.

And your dad thought THAT was easier on the car?

Thanks guys.
Good input. Regarding the weight on the roof,........ didn't I read in one of the earlier postings that the pontoons weigh like 70 lbs each? So that's like 140 to 150 right? I will check with Chrysler but I gotta believe these will carry that weight. They are factory installed. The rest of the boat (aside from the pontoons and mast I will carry inside. The mast is a problem. One thought is to even try to sell it out there and buy a new/used one back east. I think I might fabricate a support piece out of the rear 2 inch trailer hitch to support it a least 2 feet from the end of the van. I think if I put the mast dead center between the pontoons that will give it lateral support. The reason I'm interested in the roof approach rather than the trailer approach is that the trailer is a 1980 and I think I would stress out more pulling that across country even if I replaced the undercarriage and wheels and tires. You never can tell what the rust situation looks like inside the trailer beams. It looks bad enough on the outside but with all the holes for the wiring the salt water got inside the frame as well. I'm junking the trailer in California (except for the tires and the mast support post. When I get it home to NH I have another trailer that will do it fine. Any other thoughts? Thanks Again Greg.
P.S. Can't wait to get this home and actually join you all as a Hobie SAILOR!!!!!

Maybe I should sell the van and buy a 1972 Olds Delta! They were build a lot strong then. The metal seemed so much......thicker. So did the hair!

Greg,
I've got to think that buying a new utility trailer of some sort and modifying it with cross struts and mast bracket from the old hobie trailer would be easier than all the modifications to the car. When you get to NH you could pobally sell the utility trailer without taking too much of a hit in cost, and not have to worry about the old trailer making it. I know here in Mass, I have seen new utility trailers with 4'x8' beds for about 300 bucks with the lighting equipment. Put the 16 on backwards, attach the mast strut to the front of the trailer, and you are good to go on a very long drive!
Best of luck, and you need a stop in MA or CT just let me know.
Chris Titcomb
www.acceleratedchaos.com

Or puposely WAY overload the existing trailer with intent to break. If it survives then it should be ready for the trip! If it doesn't, you haven't lost anything.

Chris, That is pretty much my thinking too at this point. One variation, I think I might buy out there a Triton Aluminum Snowmobile trailer identical to the one I just bought here last fall. Then I can transfer the plates and registration to that one just for the trip home and sell the trailer here without much of a hit. The idea with the snowmobile trailer is that I could remove the undercarriage on the existing Hobie trailer and set the whole thing on the new snowmobile trailer and fasten it down. The snowmobile trailer is wide enough to accomodate the width of the pontoons and everything would be supported. My only concer at this point is whether the tongue on the snowmobile trailer is log enough so that when I put the old trailer with the mast support on it the mast doesn't hit the back of the minivan. If it does I'll have 3 options...
A) move the old trailer farther back on the snowmobile trailer. B) add a tongue extension onto the snowmobile trailer or C) possibly mount the exsting trailer backwards on the snowmobile trailer so the mast points up in the air in out the back??????? (this option I'm not sure about.)

Thanks for the offer of a place to stop. Might see you. Really appreciate the input though. This is the BEST forum page I've ever seen. People are so nice to each other and helpful as all getout. I'm really glad I found you all!

Greg

Selling and rebuying the mast sounds harder and more expensive than selling and rebuying the trailer. (and maybe harder than selling and rebuying the whole cat). Besides, the trailer could be useful later.
I carried a 27 feet mast on my Subaru Legacy roof once, but just a short distance
- Make sure to attach it at four points of the car not just one at the front and one at the rear.
- The bars of the rack are very close to each other in comparison to the lenght of the mast, so the tips of the mast will tend to move up and down. This means that the bars of the rack will support more load than just half of the weight of the mast. (if you apply a small force down at the tip of the mast, you will see how easy it is to bend the rack bars). Especially the front bar, because the mast will not be supported at the center, you want more mast length at the front than at the rear of the car.
- Tighten enough to avoid this up and down movement, the mast will bend. If you can manage to set it up with the diamonds on i think it would be better, but you need to avoid rotation of the mast and put a good cushion between the mast and the rack bar, because the area of contact is too small.
- Make sure both ends of the mast are VERY visible by other cars, not just a small red handkerchief.
- Don´t get distracted, especially on two way roads. On the curves the tip of the mast can visit the opposite lane.

Not very usefull to sell and then rebuy the trailer actually.... I meant the opposite..