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Trailer help


Pat Mellema

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I have a trailer that needs to be rebuilt to fit a weekender and I was wondering if any of you had any ideas on what I need to do. I have an old trailer that had a 14' Thompson runabout on it and it won't fit the weekender as it sits. What do I need to do to make suitable for the weekender. the toung is 9'3" long in front of the axle. I am looking for any Suggestions.

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9'3" from the hitch to the axle sounds a little short to me. That would mean that over half of the boat will be aft of the axle and that is if the stem is directly over the hitch. This would also mean that your tongue weight would be very, very lite or maybe even negative. If I remember the ratios correctly you want to have no less than 25% of the trailer weight on the tongue. I would take the trailer to a welder and see how much it would be to lengthen the tongue.

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Hi Pat,

If you have a photo that you can post, it would help as most of the smaller trailers are quite different from one another.

It sounds a little short to me as well. By the time you place the bow forward far enough to get the boat on the trailer, you will likely have a clearance problem with the bowsprit.

Is the axle moveable? If it is, you will be able to reposition it so you have better balance. Again, you want to have some weight on the tongue but not so much that it is weighting down your vehicle. Again, no more than about 25% of the bare trailer weight.

Some states, (don't know about Michigan any more) will require a minimal amount of overhang off the rear of the trailer. You might check with a trailer dealer and they will give you that information.

One thing you might also consider, that is to place your trailer lights on a bar that straps on the rear of the boat at the taffrail. It will eliminate the problems with visibility and with maintenance. Electrical systems on boat trailers are notorious for bad connections and the water doesn't help any. I have used a simple waterproof disconnect to plug it in and when the boat is in the water, just unplug it and toss it in the trunk.

You will need to reposition the bunks or rollers to support the hull. If bunks, you might need lift kits from a dealer. They are stock items. You might want to recover the bunks with new indoor/outdoor carpet. If the keel has rollers to come up on the trailer, you may want to fabricate a channel to start the keel as it starts up on the trailer, it can be awkward getting that keel started up the trailer when you are on the side of the boat.

A 2X6 and a couple 2X4's make up a channel and it is very effective. It can be carpeted along its length. Or if there are rollers, then a couple side channels at the rear will help to guide it.

Install bearing buddies if it doesn't have them. Cheap and it will save a lot of headaches when you are half way to nowhere.

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Barry

I still have not removed all of the old boat so it is hard to get pictures. I will be cutting up what is left of the boat this weekend. I have removed the seats and rails from it as they are all mahogany. The boat is dun with ribs that are oak and I don't think there is one that is not rotted out. I didn't need any tools to take the seats or rails out I just lifted them out of the boat just being held with rot. I need to know how long the toung needs to be so the bowsprit does not run into the tow vehicle. I would like to see some of the other weekenders length from the axle to hitch and wench to hitch to set it up so I won't have problems

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Pat,

Your experience reminded me of trying to remove an old boat from a neighbors yard years ago. It was an old cabin type runabout, probably 22 ft long. All wood and covered over with wild blackberry vines and brush. The neighbor rounded up all the help he could get and we cleared our way into the boat. Blackberry vines are vicious and we were all getting pretty scratched up. But we got the boat uncovered. He had a trailer all lined up to put it on and he thought he would give it to the Sea Scouts to refinish and use.

We got the trailer backed up to the boat and he pulled the cable back to the bow and we tied a good rope to the bow and the hook on the cable.

The boat had been up on blocks so it wasn't in contact with the ground but he wanted us to lift the bow up and while he winched it up onto the trailer, someone else would back the trailer up slowly to make it easier.

We got 3 guys on either side of the bow and the owner on the winch, one backing the truck and we lifted the bow up enough to back the trailer up to the bow of the boat. No problem!

Then he was going to just winch the boat up as the trailer backed under it.

Not a bad plan, but he wanted us to lift the back of the boat up as it was brought onto the trailer. That sounded logical, so...we got along side the back of the boat, grabbed onto the side rails and all together lifted...the rail right off the boat and he pulled the stem right out of the bow and the cabin collapsed right down to the keel. The transom fell out and the sides collapsed.

We couldn't hardly move for laughing so hard. But he was devistated. He thought he had a good boat, but it was completely rotted out except for the deck to sides at the bow. That part was reasonably intact except for the stem being pulled out of it.

We had a nice bonfire that night and all sang campfire songs around it.

Ok...back to the trailer.

If you don't have a station wagon, van, or a canopy on a pickup truck, the bowsprit will probably clear any trunk or truck bed and can project forward over the hitch. It won't be a problem if it extends in front of the hitch a foot or so. Measure from the bow eye to the tip of the bowsprit and that will tell you where the winch needs to be placed in relation to the hitch. Then see how far it is to the axle.

If the axle can be moved, (it can on a lot of trailers), just by loosening a couple clamps then you can move the axle if you need to to get a better balance point. If not, then you may need an extension on the tongue to have enough length to set things up.

If the state regulations don't require a minimum overhang off the back of the trailer, then you shouldn't have a problem adjusting the axle so that you will still have a positive tongue weight. I would try for max of about 85-100# at the hitch max. You might ask a local dealer about the rating of your hitch setup.

If you use a portable light bar on the boat, it brings the trailer lights up so that they are clearly visible to anyone behind you and the overhang may not be a problem at all.

If you need to extend the tongue on the trailer, that isn't a difficult thing to do for any welder or trailer shop. I wouldn't make it any longer than you need though.

There are some pretty good shots of the Weekenders on trailers in the Construction Video so you can see what they did. They were pulling with vans and so they had to deal with the bowsprit clearance.

In the Stevenson's Site, the builder pages have some of the Weekenders on trailers and you can see where the axles line up on them.

This isn't an exact science any more than building the boat and every trailer is going to be somewhat different. Some with rollers, some with bunks. Some will set the keel in a channel, others on rollers. They all work. The channel is the easiest for centering the boat on a trailer when it is other than dead calm. But rollers are easier to move the boat on and off the trailer. Outdoor carpet covered bunks help support the hull evenly and cause less wear and tear on the bottom of the boat than rollers. So...there are a lot of approaches.

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Barry

It looks like I will have to extend the toung on the trailer. The overhang is not going to be a problem as I was going to mount the lights on a light bar hung on the back of the boat. The trailer is a simple one with the axle hung by a couple of u bolts. It has rollers on it but there is only 2 of them and they are to narrow to fit the keel. it has torsion bars to keep the axle in line with the toung. The bracket is welded to the toung but the torsion bars are bolted to the bracket. I will try to pull the trailer out from under the boat with the tractor tomorrow and see if I can get pictures.

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Probably the easiest centering device is a channel up the middle of the trailer for the keel to center on. The simplest channel is a 2X6 with two 2X4s forming a "U". I would use pressure treated wood. The back end of the channel can be widened (flaired) out for the keel to set into and it centers itself as you pull it onto the trailer. The channel can be covered with outdoor/carper as bunks would be covered.

One trailer I saw had the narrower rollers set into the channel bottom so the keel actually rolled forward in the channel. Don't know if that is so necessary; but that boat was certainly an e-z loader and unloader. He also had the back end of the channel flaired out about 8" on either side at the end with a shallow ramp on it. The ramp had one roller at the end of it so the keel started up by rolling up the ramp and into the channel. The roller was about 14-16' wide flat roller and was very effective.

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I did get the trailer out from under the old boat today. I took a few pictures and posted one in my gallery. I have new hubs and tires for it. That is one of the things I am planing to do this weekend. The toung is adjustable and it looks like I will have to move the toung forward about 6". I will have to make a bracket to attach the locating arms as the old one is welded on and cannot be moved. I was going to try to save the wood from the transom of the old Thompson but it is all rotted and I pulled it apart pulling the trailer out from under the old boat. I will have to figure a way to build the bunks for the boat but will not have any problem with the rail to center the boat.

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