at last count we have 10 pages,140 replies and 5345 views on correct way to launch your boat when others are waiting to launch....time to have a discussion on loading your boat....
many experienced tournament fishermen shove nose of their boat up against winch stop and hold it there with engine trimmed up and running in gear then signal their partner to slowly pull out and shut the engine off as boat settles on trailer and prop comes out of the water....
this probably saves couple minutes per boat by eliminating that having to run to front of boat and hook up winch then run back and shut engine off..multiply two minutes by 100 boats and the time to load all the boats is substantially reduced.....
I know somebody is gonna say they saw a boat fall off a trailer on the ramp and I'm sure it has happened but I've been fishing tournys since early 70's and never seen it happen plus I've loaded my boat hundreds of times with no problems...
word of caution....don't do this if temps are below freezing(your bunks may have ice of them) or if you have put plastic glide slicks on your trailer or sprayed the bunks with some sort of lubricant...

Now you just hold on a dam minute, we ain't through launching yet so get back on the launching thread until we get this thing ironed out. We've almost got a fist fight over there and I'm going back. See ya there.

My boat.....my money.....it will be winched every time until you decide to take over payments. You can wait the extra 2 mins.

It takes no more than 30 seconds to walk up to the front deck and winch it tight.

Unless you have a hard time getting around.

Stop the madness.

Why do you feel the need to winch your boat before pulling up the ramp?

I usually hook my winch up. Safe than sorry. I'm also 20 years old and move really fast. Probably takes me 8 seconds if that. I run the boat onto trailer, the second it hits the stop I cut the motor, run up front deck, lay over the nose and hook strap, and out my truck rolls.

I�m sure the guy right above is gonna give me a smartass reply like his first comment was on this post so I�ll pose this situation to y�all.

If you think your boat will slide backwards because it�s lighter, steeper ramp, lower humidity, dropping barometric pressure or whatever, do this. Next time you load, Hook your strap and leave about 3-4� of slack in the strap and then pull up the ramp. If the strap is tight when you get to the top, then obviously the boat slid on the trailer. If it�s still loose, then there�s no need hooking it before pulling up in the future.

I have seen one fall off on the ramp. Mind you, it wasn't a bass boat, but a 30 foot Cruiser, and he was launching, and the winch strap snapped...

Oh, and I was waiting for him to return my jumper cables because his battery wasn't charged...

It was a bad day for the guy. We did get the trailer under it enough to float it out, but it scrapped the heck out of his Out Drive!

3 times I've seen a boat on the concrete. All 3 the culprit was ice on the bunks on very steep ramps. It's bad, $9000 damage on a good friends boat on Grand and that was 15 years ago. We were the only 2 boats at the ramp and it took a little over an hour to get it winched back on the trailer. The jerk bait bite was on, he made it to the water on the next try and caught enough that day that he said it was worth it lol. Good insurance = good times.

I�ve seen it happen twice. Both due to a steep ramp, truck pulling out starts to spin tires and moves backwards because of it. Drive then hits the brakes and boat falls off. The problem with the original post is that not all ramps are the same.

If you�re concerned about someone wasting your 30 seconds then you can stop fishing 5 minutes sooner and get the ramp 5 minutes earlier. Not sure what makes you more important then anyone else. Maybe you should find a different �hobby� if it�s such a burden. I�ll go ahead and recommend you not try golf either.