Transport

Not a lot of fun but necessary to the boating experience for us is a trailer, and the boat needs to have a home when it gets rolled over to be completed. After a couple of months of looking for a trailer the right size (or close to it) at a decent price we found this one on craigslist in the Bay Minette area. It’s a little rough but it has good bones!

Wish the trailer was a little wider but hopefully this will work:

The tear down starts, the lights look good but they are cracked and non-functional with chopped up wiring. The old keel guides are being replaced with wider ones.

Here the trailer is stripped clean and power washed – not pretty but functional!

The grease seals in the hubs were history and the grease fittings missing or loose allowing water into the hubs. Cliff helped me drill and tap new grease fittings and the seals were replaced. After repacking the bearings everything went back together.

The trailer has been re-configured for a flat bottom boat by moving the bunks outboard and rotating flat with a dip in the middle for the rocker (curve) on the bottom of the boat. Wider keel rollers have been added for the 2″ x 6″ keel.

Here we are complete before boat fit up:

Need a little adjustment at the aft end of the bunks and the aft keel roller:

Took care of the keel roller gap above by adding the extensions below:

Aft end of the bunks adjusted:

Here is a shot of the fwd keel support we’ll use for now:

Forward keel support complete:

Here is the gunwale strap guide we are going to try (courtesy of Greg in Oregon!) since the aft end of the skiff tapers, the gunwale strap slides aft causing some sanding action on the paint. This guide should hold everything in place.