Trailer
When I purchased Trá Bhuí it sat on a converted car transporter. While this trailer had the strength to carry the boat with ease and with 4 wheels had the stability for towing that is desirable, its configuration meant that it had to be submersed every time the boat was launched or recovered. This had worked well for the previous owner who kept Trá Bhuí on a mooring but was not ideal for my use as I intended to launch Trá Bhuí each time I sailed her. The obvious answer was to put Trá Bhuí on the trailer that I used for my Lugger “Braveheart”.
The existing trailer was solid but not ideal for frequent launches
Preparing to lift Tra Bhui off it's original trailer
My own trailer was an ex MOD trailer which I had bought to carry the Lugger as it was in my opinion a far better engineered trailer than those supplied with modern boats. With Landrover wheels, a break back set up and its robust build, it had allowed me to launch and recover my Lugger from any beach without having to put the brakes or bearings into the water.
I had originally modified it the trailer to carry the Lugger by removing 3 feet from the tow hitch as there was too much trailer in front of the bow of the boat. Measuring it against Trá Bhuí, it looked like putting four feet back into the spine and moving the axle back 2 feet along with moving the swing cradle and side rollers, would be all that was required to carry Trá Bhuí.
Being only home in the UK for a week or so, with plenty of other things that I needed to do and intending to get use the boat at the Drascombe Association’s forthcoming rally on the Clyde at the end of the week, I decided this time to get a local fabricator to carry out the welding required to lengthen the trailer
Once the spine had been lengthened, the next step was to swap the trailers over in order that the swing arm cradle and auxiliary rollers could be welded in place. Without local water this was accomplished by jacking the boat up and securing it in the air with a mixture of jacks and load straps – perhaps not to the relevant industry standards for lifting, but as I had no intention of being under it at any time it seemed a reasonable solution. Probably this should come under the heading of “don’t try this at home”
In the air!
Still in the air!!
Once the new trailer was under the boat it sat rather nicely, more importantly the balance seemed to be pretty good. All that remained was to move the swing cradle and secondary rollers to support the hull and stop the boat falling over.
Trailer with axle moved ready to be placed under the boat
Once the boat was set up a set of guide rails were welded into position along the side of the keel rollers to ensure that the boat sat on the middle of the trailer. Having had some minor problems with the Lugger due to the keel rocker making the boat run off the rollers if it was not sitting upright when loading, I realised that the Gig was simply too heavy to lift back into place on my own. The tubes are not shown on the pictures below as they were fitted once the boat was on the trailer. This was simply due to time as I did not know if I would have time to fit them or not before we needed to head off to the forthcoming rally.
Arrival at large for the Clyde Rally
The guide tubes proved to work well and during our first launch and recovery we only needed to put the trailer into three inches of water, with the boat going off and on very easily.
Time however did not allow me to complete everything on the trailer. The new bits still need to be painted, the twin light boards need to be moved further back and a cradle made to sit inside the boat to carry the mast and spars. These are things I can look forward to tinkering with the next time I am home!
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| Hauling out after Baltimore Rally (Ireland) 2014 |
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| Cradle - trailer before refurb - August 2014 |
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