New boat ramp issue

Hammerhead

Hammerhead

Senior Member
We hava new ramp in town. It looks nice,..all fancy BUT, the ramp itself is on such a slight pitch not just me but, everyone has to dunk the rear wheels of their tow trucks/cars under water to deploy boats. This includes both the big 24's and lil 16's.
Before I start a making calls and becoming a PITA :you: to remedy the situation,...am I outta line?

What the norm? The ol'ramp,..which is only 4 years old has a steeper pitch but, is constantly crowded. Any thoughts. This is in Jensen Beach, Fl. TIA
 
Hammerhead said:
We hava new ramp in town. It looks nice,..all fancy BUT, the ramp itself is on such a slight pitch not just me but, everyone has to dunk the rear wheels of their tow trucks/cars under water to deploy boats. This includes both the big 24's and lil 16's.
Before I start a making calls and becoming a PITA :you: to remedy the situation,...am I outta line?

What the norm? The ol'ramp,..which is only 4 years old has a steeper pitch but, is constantly crowded. Any thoughts. This is in Jensen Beach, Fl. TIA
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Who built the ramp?...city, state, county?....invite 'em to come out and watch...if they decline, take pictures and submit to newspaper; send video to TV stations...in short get a petition signed, pass around at ramp on Sat mornings w/suggestion taxpayer dollars wasted on bad design nobody can use...but give the builder a chance to make it right before all that...they'll give ya reasons why it "HAD" to be that way...course all that's BS

at any rate, sounds like the old ramp will be crowded for a while longer...:cen:...but to answer your question, no you're not outta line, but you'll find strength in numbers...JMHO
 
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your concerns are valid imho, do as Ozzie suggests, he knows, he has a long history of dealing with grievences, he is the one who petitioned King George I believe.
 
HH, we got one here in town we'll trade you. it is too steep. boat unloads like a dream, but when you pull up the top breaks over hard to level ground and your trailer frame drags the ground. i wish they would get input from people that actually use ramps.
 
phatdaddy said:
HH, we got one here in town we'll trade you. it is too steep. boat unloads like a dream, but when you pull up the top breaks over hard to level ground and your trailer frame drags the ground. i wish they would get input from people that actually use ramps.
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Yeah, that's what I don't get...boat ramps ain't freakin' ROCKET SCIENCE...it ain't like it's emerging technology...the state put in new tournament ramps at Dreher Island several years back...two big, wide ones...but on completely wrong angle and NOBODY used 'em and everybody complained...they finally tore 'em up and redid 'em and now they're GREAT...but couldn't SOMEBODY check the angle on a successful ramp before screwin' up a new one :head:
 
In Miami we had a ol'CC seaplane ramp,..( coconut grove )..w/a very slight pitch that would put all 4 wheels in the slime at low tide. A weekend didn't go by that someones car/trucks ended up in the drink. Folks complained and the city finally closed it to the public.

Up here I attended the meetings and asked they copy the pitch of the good ramp. Lotza good that did !!! AARRGGHHH.
 
Years back Portsmouth City Park tore out their old ramps and put in nice new ramps and two nice long piers. Like the saying goes build the ramps and the boaters will come. So on opening day people showed up but found themself backing way down into the water just to get their boats to float. Well a week or so latter the city tore out the new ramps and fixed the problem.
 
Stillrunning said:
Years back Portsmouth City Park tore out their old ramps and put in nice new ramps and two nice long piers. Like the saying goes build the ramps and the boaters will come. So on opening day people showed up but found themself backing way down into the water just to get their boats to float. Well a week or so latter the city tore out the new ramps and fixed the problem.
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Hey Hammerhead...here's a precedent by another municipality to take to whoever incorrectly built your faulty ramps...research this and take it to 'em...
 
reelapeelin said:
Hey Hammerhead...here's a precedent by another municipality to take to whoever incorrectly built your faulty ramps...research this and take it to 'em...
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This has been like 15 years ago so good luck reserching this. What you need to do is inform the city of the problem so they can take a look first hand at the problem because they might not have a clue. In the case I talked about it was not until people showed up to use the ramp did they see the issue. If they contracted out the work they will have to get the contractor back out to fix the problem.
 
Stillrunning said:
This has been like 15 years ago so good luck reserching this. What you need to do is inform the city of the problem so they can take a look first hand at the problem because they might not have a clue. In the case I talked about it was not until people showed up to use the ramp did they see the issue. If they contracted out the work they will have to get the contractor back out to fix the problem.
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Well you bring up another question...did the contractor put in the ramp to specifications?...
 
Nice statement, a boat ramp certainly isn't emerging technology. I did have some offset drop axles on the trailer of my 83' V-20 which made it very low slung and easy to launch on those shallow ramps. The other side was not to forget to trim the motor all the way up before pulling out, you'd drag the lower unit off. I'm also familiar with the old seaplane ramps, they don't make good boat launches, far too shallow an angle. A contractor that misses this didn't do much research. We were able to build a nice concrete ramp in our old neighborhood and find the design information without any problem.
 
I flipped the springs to the bottom of the axle on a trailer I had in FL to drop everything down a couple inches. This kept the truck out of the drink.
 
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