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Launching & beaching a beautiful Osprey?

R

Rick_M

Paddler
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
28
I need some advice on how launch and beach a beautiful Osprey.

With my old fiberglass boat, I would load it up and drag it in and out of the water. I will not do this with my Osprey.

Currently I load & unload the boat in the water (parallel to the shore). This only works when the water is flat, as everything can get swamped.

Has anyone tried one or more boat bumpers as rollers?

What are your recommendations ideas?

Thanks Rick McK Seattle.
 
Tim Dyer of White Squall on Georgian Bay "invented" what he calls "squaller haulers". Just pieces of 2X4 carried on deck for hauling out on their ever-rocky shores. The boat slides over these. A plastic bumper might be too sticky for that but might act as a roller on smooth slopes (as you suggest).
 
Rick_M said:
I need some advice on how launch and beach a beautiful Osprey.

With my old fiberglass boat, I would load it up and drag it in and out of the water. I will not do this with my Osprey.

Currently I load & unload the boat in the water (parallel to the shore). This only works when the water is flat, as everything can get swamped.
Click to expand...

This is a Pygmy Osprey S&G epoxy glass plywood core boat?

If it is, it's a lot tougher than you may think. A friend coated the bottom of his S&G boat with epoxy silica with black graphite pigment. It went from Victoria to Alaska and a lot of trips around Vancouver Island, and the hull is still fine. And, he doesn't 'baby' his boat, at all.

"If you built it, you can fix it!" :)
 
I've found that floating the boat in shallow water, straddling it, and kind of falling/sitting rabidly into it has usually worked for me. As soon as the current toxic bloom on my nearest boatable lake disappears (Lord; please make that soon!) disappears, I'll give the Patricia Jane her first bottom wetting....
IMG_3691.JPG
She fits the racks, she rides solidly, all that's missing is her first launch....
 
If two people are going to pick up a loaded boat, I'd use webbing straps under the boat rather than the toggles at the ends. If only two people are available (rather than the preferred four), be careful with your body position as that can be a lot of weight in a leaning over situation.

I use often carry a pair of those float noodles - cut to about 18 inches or so long. They can act as rollers. They can pad the hull against sharp-ish rocks. And they can squeeze into hatches to stablize loads.

The biggest problem I'd have is finding the joists in the living room ceiling so I could install a hoist storage such that the boat would hover in front of a wall as a piece of art.

True: I almost bought a wooden kayak at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat show - the multi-colored wood strips were beautifully combined and its 16ft or so length would have looked good over the mantle. But the cockpit was so shallow I couldn't fit in it. It had to be more than just "art".
 
It had to be more than just "art"

. . . just living up to your username!
 
designer said:
If two people are going to pick up a loaded boat, I'd use webbing straps under the boat rather than the toggles at the ends.
Click to expand...

Why?

I hear this quite often:"Don't pick up my boat by the end toggles; I don't trust them"

If the toggles aren't in good enough shape to pick up the boat, they aren't very reliable as a safety device for a swimmer.

That said, I am a subscriber to the idea (from Doug Alderson and others) :"Never carry a loaded boat" - it just seems to me to be an invitation for injuries. On a 'group trip' with webbing straps, 4 or more people carrying boats across a tidal flat could be the exception.
 
I've been involved with doing that [carrying loaded boats] even with 4 pple and have regretted it:
a kayak's ends are sharp and the boat is heavy - spearing is an issue even while walking [I still remember that happening when I thought everyone had stopped and a beautifully sharpened woodenboat's prow ran into my thigh - the memory still hurts]. . . and a rudder and attachments has many sharp bits and a heavy load carried with an end toggle next to sharp bits really annoys me.
But sometimes social pressure wins espec. at the end of a trip.
 
JohnAbercrombie said:
Why?

I hear this quite often:"Don't pick up my boat by the end toggles; I don't trust them"

If the toggles aren't in good enough shape to pick up the boat, they aren't very reliable as a safety device for a swimmer.
Click to expand...

The idea is that carrying the boat by the toggles will eventually chafe through the line attaching said toggles where they enter the hull, and then come off when you most need them.. Personally I'd say: inspect all your safety devices regularly for wear and that should never be a problem.

I still carry by the hull itself, the habbit has been thoroughly beaten in to me ;)
 
>If the toggles aren't in good enough shape to pick up the boat, they aren't very reliable as a safety device for a swimmer.

You might have missed the point that I was referring to a LOADED boat. That's 80+ pounds of gear or so. In my mind, the toggles at the end of the boat, and the whole structure of the boat itself, are not designed for that kind of weight distribution/stress out of the water. It's not just the toggle area. Imagine supporting the kayak just at the pointy ends. Then loading up the middle with gear. In my mind, that's a lot of stress on a structure that expects that weight to be supported by water.

I understand that the 150+ weight "in the middle of the boat" is me - and I'm out of the boat. But I don't want to be concerned about weight distributions and interior structural stresses. I did pull a U bolt out of the bow of a loaded boat when trying to pull it across a sand bar. Admittedly, it wasn't that strong (Dagger Vesper). But it made me sensitive to loaded boat treatment.

As far as "spearing" - that must be a different "carry" than I've seen used. In my experience, with four people, one strap is placed about a third of the way in from the stern and the other a third of the way in from the bow. At each strap, two of the people stand on opposite sides of the boat (nowhere near the pointy ends). All four pick up at once and try to march together. So you have four people, two on each side of the boat about a third of the way from the bow and stern. The straps are a loop of webbing with the loop placed under the boat and coming up both sides so to be used as a shoulder carry rather than just a hand grip.

In addition to tide flats, I recall a situation where the group wanted to leave pretty much together. The boats were all loaded on dry ground (can't remember if tide was coming in or out) and only after all the boats were ready to go, they were all carried to the water so we launched not exactly exactly, but pretty much all at the same time.

With toggles, I always tell anyone who is going to help carry the boat that they carry the bow or stern in their arm and the other hand holds the toggle for safety. People don't always listen. One "helper" wasn't expecting the hull to be so slippery and when we started walking, I pulled the boat right out of his arm (he wasn't holding the toggle). Fortunately is was an empty boat and a 4 ft drop to soft grass. But ... lesson learned.
 
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designer said:
You might have missed the point that I was referring to a LOADED boat. That's 80+ pounds of gear or so. In my mind, the toggles at the end of the boat, and the whole structure of the boat itself, are not designed for that kind of weight distribution/stress out of the water. It's not just the toggle area. Imagine supporting the kayak just at the pointy ends. Then loading up the middle with gear. In my mind, that's a lot of stress on a structure that expects that weight to be supported by water.
Click to expand...

Perhaps my boats (Mariners and DIY epoxy glass wood core) are much stronger than average, but I'd have no problem hanging them by the ends (all U-bolts) and loading the gear and water for a 2 week trip into them.
I'd 'eat my hat' if there was a whimper from the boat.
With a lightweight boat (e.g. Stellar) the situation may be different? It would be a good manufacturer demo for their ads.
 
Like Paul, any carry of a loaded boat involves an arm around the hull, each end, mainly because this is easier on the carriers. I never carry my glass boats using a rear toggle because they have unreliable screwed-through-the-deck installations [a very bad idea from Eddyline]. All my bow toggles are of the forbidden sort: loop of cordage through a through-hole and a small piece of PVC pipe. No failures, ever: carries by the untutored, towing of bruisers, tie up to a tree in a blow [other (untied) boats went scurrying down the beach], etc. Some incidents too embarrassing to list, although I have never experienced a Millsap rack failure ;) . Hope Dan does not read this.
 
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