[C320-list] "drying out" - do you/have you done this?

[Graeme Clark]

I’m not sure if I have asked this before - if so my apologies

In Britain it is not uncommon to have a tidal range of 15ft or more and most locations will get at least 6 to 8 ft as a minimum

It is thus common practice for boat owners to ‘dry-out’ a practice I gather is not that common in the US?

picture here img_1344.jpg

For those that dont know what this is, it bascally means tying up along side a harbour wall or what are ofetn called ‘scrubbing posts’ - wooden piles driven into the seabed - and allowing the boat to settle on it’s keel as the tide ebbs, having taken suitable precautions to prevent it toppling over, of course!

This  saves the cost of a lift and gives  a good few hours to scrub the undersides or make some minor below waterline maintenance task.

I wrote to Catalina to ask if the boat was designed to do this and the initial repsonse I got was that they didnt know what i was talkinga bout, so is ent them a photo and then they said “oh, we’ve heard of people doing that sort of thing in Alaska, but no, we didnt specifically design the boat for this”

We dont have many catalina owners in the UK, but I know of at least two who have dried out their boats at least once or twice.

This year when mine was hauled out for winter, the new yard I am using doent use a cradle but ‘shores up’ the boat with timber shores. As she was being lowered to the ground and the keel started to take her weight I noticed a significant degree of flex in the hull -  basically it starts to squash as the weight - normally supposretd equally along its length by the water - is supporte donly at the hull-keel join.

Which makes me wonder whether it is a safe practice, or is that flexing likely to crack and/or delaminate the GRP?

There are other issues, like the fact that the tip of the rudder is about the same depth as the keel (I think?) so if the seabed is uneven, a proportion of the laod will be taken by the rudder.

I realise the simplest and safest answer, is if in doubt, dont do it -  but if someone somewhere says “I have been drying out every two months for the past ten years” then I know its not an issue.

msny thanks, as always, for any comments.

(By the way, not sure what the costings are in the US bit in the UK, to have a 320 craned out and craned back in, will cost in excess  of US$600 - so there is a good reason tio want to do this!

Graeme

#366
Falmouth
England