A friend has a 26' mahagony classic speed boat which he keeps on a railroad going to the enclosed shop about 10' above Lake mean high water. He used a antomatic lock for the bow eye of this runabout. What is different than the CDorys I have trailered, is that the railroad carrage is nearly fully imersed when he releases (remote selenoid) the catch. The boat is fully floating and he just powers off in reverse. For retrieving, he idles the boat untl the latch catches. Then an electric winch pulls the boat into the boat house.
I rarely put the C Dory trailer to a point where it would float off. The angle and position of the latch changes as the boat begins to float. I just loosen up the bow trailer winch strap and give a little reverse and the boat idles off. There are the two small bunks on the CDory 25 trailer which keeps the bow centered both on and off the trailer. For retrieval, I slowly power the boat until it is hitting the "target bunks", and my wife has backed down the trailer, but not fully submergec. Either I go over the bow and put the winch strap on--usually it is out a foot or two. Then she cranks the winch, as I keep the engine in idle, and make sure the stern of the boat is centered between the aft stand offs. When the boat is up as tight as it can go, she goes back to the truck and slowly pulls the trailer out. I keep the motor at a high idle until just before the prop clears the water. Often the boat is back a few inches. We take the winch strap as tight as is comfortable. Then we get up to about10 mph and hit the brakes hard. The boat will slide forward to the bow stop. Any slack in the winch strap is taken up, and then the lateral straps I described earlier were applied.
