Hi, Barry Thompson from boatmags.com. Today we're looking at ramp launching
and just the simple ways to do it, how not to do it, and how to avoid that
horrible word; ramp rage. The first thing to do is prepare your boat before you
put it in the water. You don't do this on the ramp, you do this a little bit at
home and you do it either at the carpark or lined up in a queue when you're going
in. Nothing worse that arriving down there holding everybody up. First thing I
always do before I go out it's just turn the key on, turn the battery on , turn the key on, make sure the motors gonna go.
Simple thing, you could have had a it sitting there for three months it doesn't work.
You've obviously made sure you've got enough fuel and you've got fuel in the engine and
everything's gonna work, so when you get to the ramp you know holding everybody
up because the motor won't start. The next thing you got to do is make sure
you've got all the stuff on the boat. You don't put your chilly bin in and your
wakeboard and your skis and the umbrellas or whatever at the ramp, do that
at home, put them in the boat so when you get to the ramp all you got to do is put
your bungs in, take your tie downs off, make sure they engine lock is off, take
the flag off the back of the engine and you can back it down the ramp, unhook it
and you're done. Now he's backing down the ramp and oops hes actually gone a
little bit wrong, sort of overcorrected, he's overcorrecting again he's still gonna
miss the ramp, no he's not gonna make it so what he does now is, stop go ahead line
it up again so that he's bang on and using the wing mirrors he should be
able to see straight down the ramp and get it nice and straight. It's that easy
and don't be afraid and just take it easy, don't go hard. Hard turns, hard
movements just accentuate the problem. Now he's got it nice and straight now
down the middle of the ramp so you just take it far enough in so that the
wheels are in the water or the back of the boats far enough in to get it off so
it doesn't hit the ramp. Doug's backing it in nice and straight now just get
it far enough in. So what I'll do now is I'll go over and just undo the shackle,
you never take the shackle or the safety chain or the rope off before you hit the ramp.
Take it off early and you can easily launch your
boat off the ramp. I've done that with a big smuggler once at whangapoua and it was
very embarrassing. So then we undo the winch, now because this is a multi-roller
trailer, it comes off really easy so what I do is that, put a couple of
hooks around there, be careful of that, its a flailing weapon. Unhook that and then let it
off like that really easily. Now obviously I've made sure there's no
one behind me, get the rope throw it across to the person over there. We're
lucky here at Gulf Harbour because we've got a jetty which we can tie up to.
Secret now is, Doug's tying the boat up, I'll jump in here, get out of here to park the
car, don't hold the ramp up.
Okay now we've been out for our days fishing and we've got a little bit of snapper,
(Hah I wish) and we got to take the boat out. So retrieval is very much the same as
launching, it's a bit of etiquette too. At lot of boat ramps, those coming in get
right-of-way to those going out, as the case is here at Gulf harbour but not all
ramps are the same so it's just common courtesy to avoid that horrible
word, I'll bring it up again "Ramp Rage". So okay Doug back the trailer
down and we'll show you what we do. So the first thing is that get the boat
straight, with these multi rollers they're just amazing for accuracy and making
it boats on the ramp go on the trailers really easy, so keep it coming, keep it
coming. That'll do, okay bring the boat far enough up the trailer as you can, hook
the winch wire on, okay Doug just keep it straight, get the tension on
the rope here and it comes up real easy.
Also make sure your motors tilted up otherwise you'll be scratching the
Aluminium skeg on the bottom. Bring the boat up to the snubbing block
and while I'm on the boat ramp here, shackle and we're ready to go.
Again when you pull the boat out, get out of the way because you probably want to
do things before you take it back home. You might want to pull the canopy down
or clean something out of it so get out of the boat ramp get out of
the way and make it enjoyable for everybody else.
So that's our take on ramp launching, it's pretty simple we've come back in
bungs are out, the flag is back on (what sort of flag it is), tight ends are on the
motors locked, we're ready to go. The big thing about making life easy on the ramp is
the three C's: common sense, care, and courtesy and that applies to you and all
the other fellow boaties so if you do that, don't make a fuss just go along
with the flow make sure everything works right then you won't have that horrible
word come up: Ramp Rage, so a happy boating
you