Hauling out in Guaymas map: guiding your way into Guaymas haul out
Here’s our experience hauling out in Guaymas. We hauled Mosaic out at Gabriel’s Yard in Marina Guaymas in May 2023. Of course, before we even chose this yard, we did a bunch of research trying to decide between this yard or the haul out in nearby San Carlos. Lots of pros and cons to both yards, it seems, based on many Facebook opinions. Ultimately, we picked Guaymas.
Coming to the haul out date, we didn’t have very much information provided in advance. What we should have done, is come check the place out by dinghy to get a good lay of the land so we would know where we were going when we came over with our boat. We did check Google Maps satellite view, but without additional info we couldn’t sort out where we were going. As is often the case in Mexico, we figured that we would just have to figure it out when we arrived.
We had fenders out on both sides of the boat and 6 dock lines (3 on each side) rigged and ready to throw to handlers in the slipway. As we approached, the water was very shallow, averaging about 1 to 2 feet under our keel (we draw 6.5 feet). So we were already feeling constrained in our maneuverability due to the shallow water.
We saw three men waving to us so we started steering toward them and what we assumed was the slipway, though we couldn’t even see it from a few hundred yards out. Also, there were a bunch of floats in the water further hindering our maneuverability. And the wind was blowing at 10-12 knots from the west, across the boat, blowing us sideways- so we had to keep enough speed up to keep steerage.
As we approached the slip, I threw the forward starboard line to the handlers but neither caught the line (and it was even a good throw!) – from that point on, we were doomed to crash. I re-threw the line and one man caught it. As I rushed back to throw the stern line to try to keep our port side off the steel wall, we were already too far gone being blown sideways and we hit the end/corner of the wall at midship on the port side. We had a fender out – literally 1 foot too far back to take the blow.
Lessons learned from hauling out in Guaymas at Gabriel’s yard – Marina Guaymas
We have hauled out Mosaic quite a few times. In the states, there’s usually a dock where you land the boat, tie up, and then they maneuver the boat into the haul out slings.
In Mexico, things are different. In Puerto Penasco, and the same at Marina Guaymas for hauling out in Guaymas at Gabriel’s yard, there is no safe landing dock to tie up at first. It’s a high stakes entry where a missed landing means disaster. Thankfully, ours wasn’t too too bad. But still a big bummer.
What we should have done differently:
A) We should have scouted the area by dinghy or demanded more information be provided before we physically brought our boat to the haul out.
If we had done this, we would have at least had a better idea of where we were going when we were coming in for haul out. We could have seen the situation at the haul out slip (no bail out, hard landing if you hit, etc.) and we could have been more prepared.
They also HAD NO CLEATS on the landing zone so even IF they had caught the line that I threw to them, they would have had no leverage on the boat with the dock line to keep the boat off the wall on the other side. Mosaic is HEAVY. Without a cleat to wrap the dockline around, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to hold her when the wind catches her.
B) We should have slowed down when we did see the guys waving us over. We should have taken note of the wind direction and speed and done more to mitigate our impact with the slipway walls.
We should have come into the slip and not even worried about the dock lines, but instead we should have had every fender except one roving fender on the port side of the boat. We should have come in EXPECTING the boat to hit and come to rest against that downwind side of the slipway. If we’d had all those fenders out along the port side, we probably wouldn’t have gotten all scratched up.
Google Maps Images of the Small Slipway at Gabriel’s Yard | Hauling out at Marina Guaymas
We didn’t know where we were going or what we were coming into. If we had known, we could have done things differently. I’m hoping that providing this knowledge helps another cruising coming along in our wake to have a better experience hauling out at Marina Guaymas.
Note the larger haul out slips just to the EAST (right in the pictures) where, presumably, you would take your boat to haul out if you needed the larger travel lift.
NOTE:
Mosaic is a 40 foot monohull. 6.5 foot draft, 12.5 feet wide and about 43′ LOA with empty davits.
WE HAD TO FULLY REMOVE OUR FORESTAY FOR THEIR SMALL TRAVEL LIFT TO LIFT MOSAIC. (Don’t like that, but it turned out OK)
I hope this information helps YOU have a better haul out experience hauling out in Guaymas than we did. Let me know if you have any questions, I would be happy to help!
