WARNING – Half Moon Bay Ramp Conditions (08/04/2025)

[Captn Ahab]

Heads-up to anyone planning to launch or retrieve at Half Moon Bay—conditions at the ramp right now are really bad.

We haven't launched from Half moon bay since January and I really wish there’d been a sign discouraging use.

We launched Tuesday afternoon (08/04/2025) and found the sand build-up at the base of the ramp made both launching and retrieving extremely difficult. This wasn't during an extreme low, either. Half Moon bay is notorious at low tides but in the past we've only ever had problems at dead low low tide and the problem resolved after an hour wait.

We’ve got a 4.5m Steber. To launch, we had to back the car’s rear wheels into the water—something we never normally do—then physically push the boat off the trailer. That was at low tide, but not a low low (0.3m @ 16:00), and we had to drag the boat along the sand next to jetty to get it into enough water.

We’d only planned a short trip, so we were back by mid-tide incoming (0.5m @ 19:40). We had the rear wheels of the car back in the drink (100mm deep) and the front wheels touching just to get the trailer axle wet and the tail end was still around 150mm above the water. The trailer chassis was horizontal.

No chance of driving the boat on. We had to fully winch it on, which we've never had to do before, and even that took several attempts—alignment was a pain, with the boat constantly shifting sideways as we tried to get the bow up onto the trailer.

Despite the incoming tide, the problem didn’t improve over the next hour.

In short: Avoid Half Moon Bay ramp until it has been a dredged — especially if you’re running anything bigger than a tinny.

[maxmikoo]

who's this donny amirite