Trailers - I don't know jack

[slowpoke]

Picked up my trailer off a horse ranch where they were using it to haul around bales of hay. Just a bare frame, but for $60 I figured I could make it work!

[Tim Ford]

Finally got the trailer! Thanks for all the advice. I went with the Venture VB 1300....it does seem to work out well with the i550, Phil. If you get a chance, I'd love to know the measurement you are using from the base of the winch stand to the leading edge of the coupler. I had to move my winch stand forward a lot, but it's probably because the factory just bolted it on at some random spot.

IMG_2729.JPG

I'm still in the process of building bunks/modifying the thing to fit my boat.

[micah202]

.
...be sure to pad the bar just underneath the winch stand,,
,,,when the trailer's angled down a ramp,,and the boat's floating,,you'll see why!

.....I'd also suggest a wider slot for the keel on the back bunker,,,and poles the height of the gunnels for similar reasons

...the tongue jack is a tube within a tube with a ~6:1 purchase,,helps raise the tongue for boat drainage and ventilation,,,,doubles as a mast-rack for travel

....by keeping the boat as low as possible on the trailer,it's less frequent that I have to dip my car tires or exhaust in the salt water at ramps,,,,and I can actually get a rear-view over the deck-level from a mini-van when on the highway

[Tim Ford]

Thanks Couch! Good stuff. I can't wait to get the thing under the boat and see how bad this works out....always the optimist

[micah202]

.

....here's some measurements that might help.....

...my keel rests 6.5'' below the forward bunker-height at chines,,which is 6' back from the bow.
....the stern bunker is 3'3'' fwd of stern,,and is ~9'' above the height the keel rests.

...another way to put it is that once you've installed a keel landing-pad,,,you'll want the fwd bunker to be 6.5'' higher at chines,,and the rear bunker to be 5'' higher....all relative to the plane of the trailer. The bow sits ~5'' above the plane of the trailer,,with the keel being 3.5'' below that level..........you might add an inch or so height to these,,with ability to adjust once your boat's in place,,just in case my boat's radically flat!

[ryderp]

Tim,

That trailer does look very familiar. I've been very happy with the Ventura. On my trailer, the front edge of the base of the winch stand is 22" behind the aft edge of the hitch coupler. It looks like your rear trailer bunk is on the front side of the rear cross brace. Mine is on the back side of the brace - so I would guess that your winch stand would be a couple of inches further forward than mine.

On my trailer, the rear bunk lines up with frame 169 and chine of that bunk is 7.5" above the trailer. The front bunk is about 6.5" above the trailer at the chine and lines up with frame 89. As I mentioned previously, my keel support is a 1" thick plywood which was curved to fit the middle cross brace. It is bolted to the top of that cross brace just with two L brackets. The keel lines up perfectly with this support. Looking at my trailer this morning, I see that it would be possible to take an inch or so off of the height of each of the bunks, but I actually like having a bit more wiggle room with the keel.

The yellow roller (which I see that you have also) doesn't provide much support, but it does keep the boat from hitting the frame when the boat is floating and the trailer is at an angle on the ramp. I just moved that to roughly line up with frame 53.5.

Phil

[Tim Ford]

Terrific. Thanks for all the measurements, both you guys. I got some measurin' to do.

Phil, I did everything so far with the expectation that my frame 169 will fit perfectly on the rear bunk. My biggest worry is that it will sit too high in the water thus necessitating backing the car down the ramp until the windows are submerged (like Couch has suggested!)

[micah202]

...don't forget to add the guide-posts to the rear bunker and keep a nice wide slot for the keel.....with these,your boat will glide onto the trailer easy-peasy!

...there's -1- spare inch of space between my keel and hull...I've found no issues for this---any more will just get your windows wet more often when the tide's out

...looking at the photo's again,,I can see I -really- lucked out with the trailer Ben found-- the wide tire base allows for the chines to be below the top of the tires!...the keel bottom is ~15'' above the ground. This is a nice touch,,,probably the key to having a mirror-view over top of the deck when I'm driving...I also discovered that the rims are the same fit as my tow-van,,so I've got nice big tires,,only carry one spare!

[ryderp]

I wouldn't worry too much about the height of the bunks. You are only going to get so low, and on the ramps I've been on, I've been able to keep the vehicle out of the water, and the boat just floats off. If you have a very shallow-angle ramp, it could be an issue, but these boats aren't very heavy and if you get a bit of flotation in the stern, you can just push it off the bunks to launch it, and winch it back on at the end of the day.

Phil

[micah202]

we get some nasty- flat ramps at low tide around here--why not do what you can to optimize for launching,,,travelling?

[strider]

From personal experience, it is not just shallow, flat ramps, but also steep ones. They will lift the back off the trailer and force the bow into the trailer. After two hard days of racing, bad weather, rough chop at and a very steep ramp, we paid for an expensive repair to the bow of the old race boat. Easy to make allowances for whatever ramps you may find now if you plan on traveling at all than find yourself having to do those repairs. G.

[Tim Ford]

This is how the trailer turned out so far. I am waiting until I can get the boat on it (without the keel) in a couple of days to see where the bulb will sit and how low it will be. Ground to top of the forward bunk is 24.5" and ground to the top of the aft bunk is 26"

If I need the sides extended, I reckon I can just sister on a piece of 1x3, correct?

boatNtrailer.jpg

[micah202]

tim,,the boat can float ~1' either side of center even with guideposts on the back bunker...it'd help to have a wider slot for the keel--easier to do now than once the boat's living on the trailer

[Tim Ford]

Very true and thanks for mentioning that! I forgot to add, before we load the boat on the trailer this Friday, we're going to take a Saws-All to that slot and make it wider. But thanks for the reminder!

[micah202]

Very true and thanks for mentioning that! I forgot to add, before we load the boat on the trailer this Friday, we're going to take a Saws-All to that slot and make it wider. But thanks for the reminder!

.....always happy to blather!.....is that your crew in the pic...or your corrector weight??

[ryderp]

Tim,

The trailer looks great. I think that your bunks are maybe an inch lower than mine and your front bunk is farther forward than mine, but otherwise the trailers are twins. I do recommend adding some carpeting to the (more vertical) parts of the bunks that touch the sides of the boat. The boat will definitely be bumping back and forth on those as you pull it onto the trailer.

The keel-bulb slot on my rear bunk is 10" wide. I haven't had a problem with it.

Phil

[Chad]

Yeah, my bulb floats over the rear bunk when floating on/off the trailer, making the gap pretty much unneeded.

[micah202]

Yeah, my bulb floats over the rear bunk when floating on/off the trailer, making the gap pretty much unneeded.

..yer must have a steepish ramp

[Tim Ford]

I appreciate the posting of the photo on the frontpage, but I'd rather see shots of boats racing!

FWIW, we got the boat on the trailer using just two people, me and Garry, and some 10 foot pine beams. This was a personal challenge for Garry, he has been reading some guy's accounts of how humans used levers and pivot points back in the BC days and this guy apparently moved an entire barn by himself. So bascially we just raised the boat and used the trailer as a lever, moving the support structure farther aft a few times and then we winched the thing on to the trailer. Note Garry's stylish hat from the early i550 hat days.

i550Lift1.jpg

i550Lift2.jpg

From a weight point of view, and this sort of spills over into the Casting the Bulb thread, I doubt this thing weighs more than 500 pounds at present. We had no trouble lifting it up to slide beams under her, at any point. It's just a seat-of-the-pants guess, but we both agreed, no way this is 600 pounds of boat. OK, the mast and hardware are not on it yet, nor the rudder foil and keel, but still. It is going to be light.

One other thing, before the boat went on, I took a Saws-All and widened the keel slot, aft, to 10.75 inches.