trailer fitting

[Bob Noodat]

Bob, I keep trying to find where you posted the solution. Could you maybe link to the post here?

This was the main post:

http://www.albinowners.net/aog/viewtopi ... des#p80726

I see that they now have a caveat that these are for freshwater only. Presumably a CYA due to people being a little careless with upkeep. The box sections no doubt have no plating on the inside, but the metal is very heavy and a combination of rinsing off and some waxy-oily treatment annually should keep them clear of significant rusting. Mine are in new condition after 18 months, but that is in freshwater, but still I would have no hesitation in using them in salt water, given the big difference they make in centering a boat.

I now use them on a 25' by 8'6" boat with 25" draft and weighing 7200lbs on its tandem axle trailer, so almost identical to an A25. The only modification necessary was replacing the eight 6" bolts with 7", due to a larger section on the trailer frame.

This is a recent picture of the larger boat:

20200924_134946.jpg

[tribologist]

We are now looking for #42 in Bob’s posts.

My guides are springy and centers the boat well at the railing, however, there are two degrees of freedom so even if the hull is centered between the posts up at the railing its common to come up out of the water with it a few inch off at the keel. Mostly from uneven ramps but any heeling will mess it up too. Having something centering the keel is essential to get it fully centered. Next time i get it good on center i will make a Vee for Driftless.

[Bob Noodat]

We are now looking for #42 in Bob’s posts

There you will find the answer, to .........

[motthediesel]

Well, the trailer did it's thing.







It was not without problems, mostly due the bonehead fitter (me!) having installed the shift cable on the wrong side of the quadrant. It just would not back off the trailer -- until we realized I was blasting it in forward! I'm owning up to that one right here and now -- donning once again the hair shirt of shame

Postmortem -- those tiny wheels are awful, and the axles are scary narrow -- but I knew both of those things going in. We'll try to pack as much use of the boat as we can get in the next couple of weeks. Then we'll pull her again, and over winter I'll fit wider axles with real wheels, brakes, and tires -- this will be a real road trailer yet.

Tom

[WillieC]

"until we realized I was blasting it in forward!"

In a fainthearted effort to preserve marital harmony, I will refrain from showing this to the Starfleet Commander. Why was I pushing so hard on the bow while she was pouring the coal to her...in forward? (Just a day, just another day at the beach...Craig Carothers)

[DesertAlbin736]

You mean "a real DA'ing trailer" ?
When is the best time to see fall colors before it gets too cold? IF we can come out next year we'd like do a fall cruise up the Rideau if we have to launch from Clayton or Alexandria Bay instead of Oneida Lake & then trailer over to Plattsburgh for Lake Champlain & trailer down to Chesapeake Bay if we had time. If we wanted to do some really crazy DA'ing we could do Pacific NW & BC earlier in the summer & trailer all the way across from Blaine, WA to Clayton or Alexandria Bay NY in the fall.

PS, that sure is a purdy boat!

[DesertAlbin736]

Will be anxious to hear how it goes centering your boat on haul out

[motthediesel]

Well, for fall colors on the Rideau your time frame is pretty short. The leaves are just coming on here now (Sept 25) and the canal usually closes mid-October.

This time of year in Northern NY/Eastern Ontario I call “Anything Season”. You can expect daytime temps to be in the 80’s, or in the 40’s — it’s the luck of the draw.

Today was bluebird skies, glassy water, and 72F, just about as nice as it can be. But bear in mind that this season here can also bring gale force winds, near freezing temps, and spitting snow. Anything season!

[nebulatech]

Your boat is absolutely beautiful. When I get to painting, I'm definitely doing the blue hull! The trailer looks awesome as well. I understand the concern with small tires, but what is problematic about narrow axles, is it stability in transit?

DA'ing for the win!

PS thanks Bob! Those guides look pretty easy to make custom. Its good to hear they work so well with almost the same boat. My ramp has up to 6.5 knots of cross current (mid tide), so tribologists point re: centering the keel is of concern for me as well.

[Bob Noodat]

PS thanks Bob! Those guides look pretty easy to make custom. Its good to hear they work so well with almost the same boat. My ramp has up to 6.5 knots of cross current (mid tide), so tribologists point re: centering the keel is of concern for me as well.

That would be excellent, and I envy you your fabricating skills. You could get a perfect fit and use galvanized or even stainless. Just don't stint on the gauge and section of steel since they have to be able to really shove the hind end of the boat around as the pointy part gets hauled into the bow roller by the winch. I look forward to seeing the finished product.

[DesertAlbin736]

I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms with AOG down for maintenance this weekend!

Well, for fall colors on the Rideau your time frame is pretty short. The leaves are just coming on here now (Sept 25) and the canal usually closes mid-October.

This time of year in Northern NY/Eastern Ontario I call “Anything Season”. You can expect daytime temps to be in the 80’s, or in the 40’s — it’s the luck of the draw.

Today was bluebird skies, glassy water, and 72F, just about as nice as it can be. But bear in mind that this season here can also bring gale force winds, near freezing temps, and spitting snow. Anything season!

That's the thing about trying catch fall colors before the canals close. So if we did that we'd trailer out your way to launch from Clayton or Alexandria Bay, then just do the Rideau up & back & haul out to trailer over to Plattsburg for Lake Champlain rather than the whole loop thing. Stays a bit warmer longer down in MD on the Chesapeake after Lake Champlain to round out the trip. All TBD of course predicated on COVID having receded enough to travel in Ontario. Right now that's a big if. I'm getting NY Canal Corp email notices to mariners like this one this morning, "Mariners are advised that the Erie Canal between Lock E-19 in Frankfort and Lock E-20 in Whitesboro is closed to navigation until further notice." Before moving to AZ in the late 1970s I lived in Saratoga County between Schenectady & Ballston Spa, so I remember well that we'd get frosts by October.

72 would be nice. The AZ desert heat is wearing on me this year more than usual since we didn't get to do our usual escape to the Pacific NW. Today is the first day in quite a while where we're supposed to top out at 99 instead of over 100. But we'll finish up September & into the first week of October still bumping up around 100 degrees. Overnight low has "cooled off" to 71, but at 9:30 AM local time it's already up to 94. So some chilly weather would be welcome. We won't likely see highs down to 72 until after Halloween or even Veterans Day.

[motthediesel]

I've got some updates on my trailer project, but before I go into any detail, I want to check if my photo hosting site will let me link here. Somebody let me know if they can see this picture.

[DesertAlbin736]

Yes the photo shows up fine. Thanks.

[motthediesel]

Thanks! The “privacy” settings on Google Photos make me crazy!

[motthediesel]

The trailer worked well enough for us last year, at least just to go a couple of miles back and forth to a local ramp, but we want a real long-distance (DA-ing ) rig. The first problem was how narrow the track of the wheels were. With the full keel these boats have, they make for a tall load, and the narrow axles gave me a real bad feeling. Here's what it looked like from behind.

Additionally, at a 9-1/2' beam, the boat is "over width" everywhere in the U.S. Putting that boat on a narrow trailer only makes it's beam look bigger. That is begging for the kind of "official attention" I would like to avoid. My thought is that putting very wide axles under it will have just the opposite effect, maybe?



So -- how to make the track wider, without re-doing all the bunk work we just did? Longer axles would be needed, and they would require wider spacing of the frame rails that could not be moved -- quandary! Some kind of frame "outriggers" would be needed.

I decided to use the same 4x6 inch aluminum I beam that made up the main frame of the trailer, offset 11" to match the 78-1/2" spring-center axles I would be using. Here's a quick drawing I made up for construction purposes.



I ordered the materials from an online metals supplier, and then set about getting to work. These components are not cheap, and I did not want to make any mistakes in cutting them, so I made plywood patterns first, as you see here.



(to be continued)