Slow is Pro

We stayed the night on Skyward in the middle of the (work) week knowing we had an early morning haulout. After we fired up the engine and warmed it up, we cast off the dock lines and motored head first into the haulout bay. It was our normal “slow is pro” style.

We got about 500 ft away from the haul out bay and the crew started yelling at us. “We told you to take down your backstay and get that antenna pole taken down” and “you have to come in backwards”. They were hollering at us, and we were stunned as the boat slowly inched towards the staging dock.

We got tied up and the leader of the crew kept hammering us with these statements which we had no clue what he was talking about. He explained that the Atlantic Highlands lift doesn’t have the ability to lift our boat out of the water without removing the backstay and taking down our antenna pole — and — coming in backwards. We were trying to get over the shock of a plan just falling completely apart, when they offered to try to lift us out without removal of the antenna pole or backstay. BUT, we had to back the boat into the bay.

Now. I’ve never had any success backing up this boat. The wind pilot on the transom causes a lot of issues and the boat walks to the Starboard side. This meant that I would have to back out of the bay entirely out into the marina. Then I would have to turn the boat around and back it in back down the bay. I was almost laughing at the suggestion. They convinced me that they would assist.

We did just that. Backed it out straight as an arrow and then hooked our way backwards into the bay. They did help us but they said that no one was making that move with only 1 try.

Once we got into the bay safely, the crew set to work placing the lift in the right spot. You can see that they could not get the boat fully out of the water without the backstay hitting the rear of the Travelift.

Although we were initially adamant to not take down the backstay and not lay down the antenna pole, we sorted out how to do this. We spoke with the marina and they agreed to give it one more try. In the end, this attempt did not happen, because there were no stands for our boat. Skyward needs 8 SBS-1 stands + a bow stand. The marina could not provide these, and it would have cost us over $2,500 for new stands; they would not have been delivered on time.

So, we decided to pursue a different marina for haulout this Winter. We are headed up to Norwalk Cove Marina in East Norwalk, CT where they have a couple of very large Travelifts.

Check out these images from a day in October sitting on the mooring: