Napa Valley Marina can haul any size boat, we guess as long as it can get there! This is the tractor on the small ramp at Napa Valley Marina getting ready to load Rikki-tikki-tavi on a trimaran trailer that has hauled a whole lot of other tris over the years. The stories it could no doubt tell... Wearing neoprene waders, one of the expert boat handlers attaches carpet padding to the trailer and climbs under Rikki-tikki to knock under his wings– this to locate precisely the aka crossarms that will bear the weight of the entire vessel on the trailer. Once the boat was out of water, he placed wood blocks under the keelson to displace some of the burden.

Coming on up the ramp with his green river beard in full evidence, Rikki-tikki is removed ignominiously from the water. There are a LOT of boats on the hard here. Rikki fills an alley between dozens of “unimarans”.

Working in the yard...

This site, copy and photographs copyright Nina Courtney.