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Launching and hauling out, in the boat insurance glossary

Boat insurance term, area: Hull

Launching means putting a boat into the water down a ramp, on a trailer or a slipway cradle; hauling out is the same move in reverse, and in a marina a crane with slings does the job. These are the minutes when the hull carries none of its own weight. A sling in the wrong place, a cradle that shifts, a ramp steeper than the trailer can hold: the mark is left on the underwater hull, the keel, the rudder or the shaft, and it is often found only at the next lift. Hull wordings therefore settle time ashore and time on a trailer in the scope clause, before the list of perils is reached at all.

What to check: Two questions for your own contract: does its scope reach the boat ashore, during hauling out and launching, and while it travels on a trailer or a lorry? And what does the wording demand of the lift and the lashing, so that a badly secured load does not leave you with the bill?

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