CYOB Inbox: November 10, 2022

Trim Tabs

Nov 10, 2022

Re: Ask Andrew: Trimming – it’s just plane sense. Part 2: Trim Tabs

HI Andrew – It’s apparent that you’ve never had a boat moored in the salt, because there, mussels and barnacles can also be a major issue in why one’s trim tabs no longer seem to work. One of the reasons ‘Canadian Yachting’ is often considered to be ‘Toronto as the centre of the universe’ yachting.

Carol D
Star of the Sea
28′ Kingfisher Destination
Horseshoe Bay, British Columbia

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Carol, on both of your points:

1) that debris and sea-life (whether mussels and barnacles that you experience, or zebra mussels or underwater weed-growth in fresh water) has a negative effect of trim-tab operation. This should have been mentioned.

2) Home base for me is near Toronto – it’s tough to always understand and discuss every issue affecting every Canadian boater (regardless of size, use, style, area, water type, depth, temperature, engine type). I try to consider and allow for each of these – but it’s tough. I appreciate the feedback and will continue to work hard to discuss each perspective.

Thanks for writing – and for being a reader.

Yours,

Andrew

 

 

Lifting technique

Hi John,

I just read your ‘haulout madness’ article – sounds like quite an adventure! Glad you were able to come up with a solution.
I have a method we use at my club (TMCC) that I thought might interest you. We do this to speed up hooking up the crane, but I think it would also have helped in your circumstances.

The recommendation is that all boats coming to the dock to be lifted have a line that passes under the hull in front of the rudders, in approximately the position where the strap should go. Then when they get to the dock, we tie one end of the strap to that line and pull the strap through from the other side. This prevents all the mucking about trying to get the lifting strap under the rudders (yes plural – we’re a multihull club 🙂 ). I think if you had such a line in place, it also would have solved your mud issues, would it not?

Note that this assumes the lifting straps are detached from the crane and re-attached before lifting. Again, this is something we do for speed – we have two sets of straps, so the crane can simply release the straps of the boat it just lifted, move over to the dock, and hook up the new straps which are already placed properly.
Thanks for the great publication, really enjoy it,

Mike Tucker

Toronto Multihull

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