Before Shoal Waters could be relaunched a number of things needed to be done both structurally and cosmetically, but in order to do this, she had to be moved from the Goldhanger Sailing Club premises to my workshop in West Norfolk. Normally this would not be a problem, but in this case the road trailer upon which she rested was not road worthy and another means of transport had to be arranged.
In the end I hired a tipping car recovery trailer which had to be collected from Grantham, driven to Goldhanger where Shoal Waters on her trailer would be winched onto the car transporter. The whole kit and kaboodle would be driven to my home where she would be unloaded and the trailer returned to Grantham.
Sounds easy. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t.
Collecting the trailer and driving to Goldhanger was easy enough, but when Jim and I arrived at the club and tried to pull the boat out from canopy that had been erected over her to keep her out of the weather during off-seasons, we found that one of the trailer wheels had collapsed.
This was a problem. Although we were not rushed, I had hired the trailer for 4 days, getting the boat and trailer onto the car transporter was going to be taxing. Since I had no idea what exactly would be required to load Shoal Waters on the the transporter, I brought along everything I thought might even remotely be required and it was a good thing I did.
Amongst the paraphernalia in the minibus were 4 brand new scaffold planks and, quite frankly, these saved the day. Essentially, we put two boards under the trailer just inside of the collapsed wheel with wooden blocks to support the trailer such that the wheel was not carrying any load and then pulled the trailer out with the minibus until it was clear of the canopy. The top plank slid over the bottom plank a bit like the Egyptians were thought to have moved some of the blocks for the Pyramids.
The minibus was moved out of the way and we manhandled the transporter in front of the boat, rigged the ramps and tipped the whole thing up. Then the lower of the two planks was encouraged to start up the ramp whilst we took it in turns to winch the whole thing onto the transporter.
Then it was a case of winch the boat up a few inches, check that nothing was in danger of falling off, reposition various blocks under the trailer so that if anything did go awry the trailer would only fall down an inch or two, then rinse and repeat.
It took a very long time.
Finally, the boat and the road trailer had been successfully loaded onto the transporter and we could tie it all down securely.
Of course, we still had to load everything else into the minibus, except the mast which was too long, that was tied to the transporter under the boat along with the scaffold planks. The minibus was hitched on, the lights checked and we were ready to depart.
We had arrived at 11am and it was now just before 6pm and we were exhausted. Both of us still had two hours of driving to get back to our respective homes, but after that we could at least sit down and take a rest.
The drive home, being after going-home time for most people, was uneventful and uninterrupted except for a fuel stop and three stops to check the load, but I was very glad to get home. This is how I left the minibus and the transporter after getting home, as far as I was concerned doing anything else could wait until the following day.
I can say without a shadow of a doubt that despite the trials and tribulations of the day, we both arrive at our homes tired but very happy.
I was able to see the problem with the collapsed wheel the next day, it really does look like it’s in trouble, doesn’t it. The cure for this was to completely remove the axle and both wheels and replace them. Fortunately, I had kept the axle and wheels from Naiad’s trailer repair and these were used to make a new fitting for Shoal Waters’ trailer.
I say I had kept them but to be honest I had intended to take them to the tip but I always forgot when we made a trip to the Recycling Centre and over time they had become so overgrown that we had forgotten about them completely. Until now.
With the first wheel off the damage is pretty evident. The whole wheel and axle assembly on both sides was completely rusted through. We were very fortunate that the other wheel stayed connected. Surprisingly, the rest of the trailer is in very good shape with only a little rust here and there. The axle and wheels must not have been properly protected from the seawater.
After wrestling with the very heavy axle assembly, we managed to get it removed and out of the way leaving behind trails of thick rust.
This makes it look very precarious but in fact, we blocked up the trailer at four points to prevent anything from tipping over. And at this point we had to stop. I needed some u-bolts to make the new axle assembly as the ones I had in the workshop were the wrong size, much too small. Thankfully, Amazon Prime had some which I ordered forthwith and retired for the evening.
As soon as the U-Bolts arrive the following afternoon, I made up the new axle and wheels and fitted it to the trailer. The tyres were smaller in diameter that the ones we took off and those did not fit onto the wheel boss on the new axle, but this is not intended to be a road trailer so if it sits a little close to the ground, well, so what?
Rolling Shoal Waters off the transporter was ridiculously easy compared to getting her loaded on, and soon we had the trailer ready to be returned to Grantham.
Shoal Waters herself will stay in front of the workshop for the moment as I need to drop the centreplate out and that mean lifting the boat up off the trailer about 10″ or so, to allow the centreplate to be removed from under the hull.
I’ll probably weigh the empty hull in the process so that I know what her base displacement is without having to guess.
Definitely time for a cup of tea.