Where to park?
Richmond Boardwalk Marina
So now I have a boat and a trailer on the way, one of many next obvious questions is where do I put it? A 33ft. sailboat on a trailer is not exactly subtle and not the sort of thing you can just park anywhere. Furthermore, I want to sail it regularly, so parking next to water with a means of putting the boat in and out of the water would be convenient.
This is essentially a racing boat and therefore it is not the sort of boat I want to leave in the ocean for long periods of time to sit and grow barnacles. I also don’t want to put anti-fouling paint on the bottom either which basically means that when I am not using it I want it out of the water on it’s trailer. A 33ft. sailboat, even a lightweight one, weighs a not insignificant amount (~4,000lbs. to be more exact). Additionally, it has a keel and on the trailer stands 11ft. above the ground up to the cabin top. The size presents some complications for getting it from the trailer to the water.
The most obvious option that people think of when launching a boat is to back the trailer down a ramp and then float the boat off. This is possible. The boat sits about 2 feet above the ground on the trailer and the draft is about 4 1/2 feet which means it needs to be in about 6 1/2 feet of water in order to float it off the trailer. Sounds easy. A lot of boat ramps don’t go that deep as the average bass boat being launched will float off its trailer in about 3 feet of water. Second problem is that I have to back said trailer into the water with 4,000 lbs. of boat on it hopefully under some semblance of control. There are a couple problems with this. First of which is that my truck, and most vehicles for that matter, don’t do well in 6 feet of water. People who do this regularly claim to have a solution to this problem. I am very skeptical but that is the claim by the experts. The solution is to attach the trailer to your tow vehicle using a long tow strap so as to extend the reach and not need to get the vehicle so far into the water. So, as if the first part of this wasn’t bad enough, remember the part about backing down the ramp in a controlled fashion. How controlled do you think a 4,000lbs. boat on a trailer sliding down a boat ramp attached to my vehicle only by a tow strap sounds? This sounds like a profound use case for a serious amount of cuss words not to mention a recipe for disaster. Keeping in mind a family member, or even maybe a friend of mine, I have convinced to be crew will be out back keeping an eye on things while I do this. Yeah, no thanks!
So having ruled out ramp launching except in extreme desperation there is another option. That option is a boat lift or crane. This is something that marinas and yacht clubs sometimes have planned for and have around for routine use. Now, I am not too good at American measurements but 4,000lbs. means 2 tons but then I would like a safety margin and I will likely have some stuff in my boat making it slightly heavier. So, I am looking for a lift that can comfortably lift more than 2 tons. Not a problem right? Well after a fairly exhaustive search of the internet looking into various options around the bay area I have discovered that most yacht clubs are much more interested in advertising the skill of their bar tender at the clubhouse than the lifting capacity of their lift. Most of these clubs focus on that because they don’t have a lift and the few that do have a lift that tops out at 2 tons. Furthermore, the clubs with a lift have a waiting list for storing boats there. Turns out boat lifts with a lifting capacity above 2 tons are a rare commodity around the bay area. I have come to the conclusion that people with boats that are much larger than 2 tons just leave them in the water and pay some local scuba diver to regularly scrape off what is growing on the bottom of their boat. Despite this frustration; I have found one. There is a marina in Point Richmond that has a large expanse of boat parking and a 2 1/2 ton lift.
I found this place over the weekend and managed to chat with some of the local boat owners as well. Seems like a cool place and there are even a couple boats like mine parked there. It is called Richmond Boardwalk Marina (used to be called Brickyard Cove which sounds better) and now I need to contact the management and figure out what one needs to do in order to park a boat there. I am sure it will involve forms and payment of money. Hopefully this will work out because if it doesn’t I am not sure what other options there are. Above is a picture of the marina from their website. Spot the two lifts (2 tons and 2 1/2 tons) and all the sailboats. Huge props to anyone who can spot which lift is which and even bigger props if you can spot a Hobie 33 in the background (there is one there). I’ll have to figure out prizes later - free sail on the boat maybe?