I've been fighting to get the boat fitted to the trailer. To do that, I need to get the boat ON the trailer, which I've been trying to do with the overhead frame I built in my tent. It turned out that I could not get enough "lift" with that frame. The bow was reasonably high but the stern always ended up too low:
I know there has got to be a better way to do these things, but sometimes you just go with the first idea you think will work. I couldn't raise the frame in the tent any higher, so yesterday I built a second frame outside to do the job:
Of course, that meant another trip to the hardware store, and more $$.
Today I was all excited to get this darn thing on the trailer and get it done. I hoisted my boat up in the tent, put furniture dollies under the cradles, and started to move the boat outside on thin 1/4" plywood. The dollies were ok from a weight-rating perspective, but their caster wheels were too small and the dollies wanted to slide out at every bump. Decided to upgrade to casters bolted directly to the bottom of the cradles:
Of course, that meant another trip to the hardware store, and more $$.
All right - that ought to fix it, right? Time to get this boat outside! And at first, it looked like I had all of the issues solved:
The bow was the easiest to move since it's light. Unfortunately, when the aft cradle hit the thin plywood sitting on the gravel, the casters wheels started breaking through the plywood everytime there was a depression in the gravel. And when the caster wheel would stick, this often caused the cradle to start to tilt. After some scary moments I gave up and we eventually got the boat back inside the tent. No damage to the boat occurred, but it looks like 1/4" plywood won't cut it - need 1/2" I guess. Of course, that means another trip to the hardware store, and more $$. Sigh - I'm feeling a bit frustrated at the moment.
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