In the last two blog posts, we looked at securing the boat neatly to the trailer – what else is there to think about?? Mast and Light Board….
Mast first – there are a whole selection of mast mountings very often based upon a bridge in the centre of the boat, and the normal mast support at the front. For years we towed our boats like that, but with mast foot facing forwards, you do find that the rear end (top of the mast) whips around a lot over the bumps. The solution interestingly is to do with modern FF covers. They now have a loop at the back so can be supported by the two ends – thus reducing the whip problem.
I have a car with a high roof (Land Rover speciality), so I need to have a bit of rear 
overhang. Remember that by law now the most this can be is one metre – you dont need that much on an FF, so you’ll be alright.
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We often tie the mast centre to the cross-over strap if we have one to stablise the centre of the mast as well.
Now what of the light board. Again the answer lies in the cover. For many years we all had a light board based on a GRP moulding of a transom which fitted it over the stern of the boat – only needing to be secured forward (somehow). I hated it and and have had two jump off – one near Northampton (God works in mysterious ways) and one towing to the Europeans at La Rochelle. “Never again”, I swore… I don’t have a photo of it – I gave the whole thing to Phil Tinsley …… who collects just anything for his personal FF Fleet.
The answer on newer covers is to have two loops on the back upon which you can mount a standard light board. (see photo above) It works a treat as you can see in the photos. Go this way if you can.
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