BYYB Forums

I'm up having a coffee now that everything is safe. 
        well I found a trailer on craigslist last week, for 400 dollars, and although it didn't look like much it is pretty nice. It has bearing buddies, dual axels and rollers and it is hinged. so I sanded it and painted it and it looks pretty good right now.  So now it's time to put the boat on the trailer and adjust the rollers etc. WHAT A HORROR SHOW.  I tied a tag line through the bow and hooked it up to the winch, then popped the hinge on the front, a couple of dollies on the sides with shims, it looked pretty good so I started winching it up. I got about 4 feet when the boat decided it wanted to take a left turn.I could see it in slow motion. I jumped back and hung on the side to stop it from flipping over on the only concrete part of the driveway. Saved it, however now I can't let go of the boat to go get some shoring. So hand over hand to the other side of the boat and scooted the dolly out with my foot, lucky it was the one with the open center, then picked it up with my foot and wedged it vertically under the side of the boat. There was enough weight coming down on it to hold it in place, then I frantically ran around the yard getting saw horses 2x4's 4x4's and got it stabilized. It took about an hour to get it to this point, on the trailer so it won't fall off. The rounded keel is a little tricky.  All I could think about was turning 4 months of work into firewood. So anyway I'm hoping to have the maiden sail May 1st.  It should float on the trailer a little easier.
                                                            Marc

hahahaha, funny.  Your boat can take a beating, falling of a stationary trailer better not hurt it bad or you may want to re-think sailing in it

During my build I put some heavy eye-bolts in the rafters of my garage.  I was then able to use a trucker's hitch as an improvised block and tackle to hoist it up as necessary.

Very handy lots of times during roll-over, roll-back and trailer loading and then the trailer adjusting.

Hi Marc;  Im very much a Newbie and have allready thought about the day that "JoeDee's Song" goes on the trailer and from my experiance trailering building supplies and draft horses it's all about balance.  Might be a good idea to have the trailer hooked to the vehicle because too much weight forward on "The Hitch" causes steering problem, (light in the front end) and too much weight on back of "The Hitch" causes traction problems, look at your rear axel springs before you "Hook" onto the sailboat and trailer and measure if you have to from the bottom of the frame to the top of the axel and you should have the same measurements after the sailboat and trailer are balanced.
When hauling any trailer "criss cross" the safty chain to your bumber under "The Hitch",  right on the left and left on the right, if "The Hitch" fails the crossed chains will keep the trailer toung from hitting the ground, not a pretty sight in the rear view mirror's.

Alan & Fran

Always good to have a few folks at the ready during the move to the trailer. My Vactioner transfer was uneventful due it part to two helper to stabilize it while moving off the dollys. I've run up on a few submerged rocks on my lake over the years since, the hull and keel are plenty strong, thankfully.

Greg