Chris’ new trailer has arrived!  It has taken a few weeks to manufacture and been needed for much longer.

The old trailer

Chris took delivery of his shiny new aluminium I-beam trailer late last week, which is now the second in the lureandfly.com stable.  After a weighbridge ticket and successful registration inspection on Thursday afternoon we ventured to the local boat ramp to carry out the swap.

Putting a boat on a trailer which it has never been on before can be a tricky task, but in this case, being a skid style trailer there actually weren’t that many adjustments to to be made unlike a multi-roller trailer.  Knowing that the boat would have to come on and off the trailer several times before the setup would be correct, the main issues we kept in mind were:

• Ensuring the skids or bunks were the correct distance apart so that they sat correctly on the flat part of the hull between the strakes.
• Ensuring that the boat was balanced on the trailer, not positioned too far forward or backward in relation to the axles.
• Correct positioning of the winch post and bow roller.
• Correct height of the boat from the trailer so that the wheel guards do not foul the boat.

Once we had checked and were happy that the boat was going to sit on the trailer without fouling anything, we backed the boat off the old trailer and floated it onto the new one before pulling the boat and trailer up onto level ground to assess what further adjustments needed to be made.

Aside from adjustment of the front bunks and winch post there was little to be done, we launched and retrieved the boat a couple of times to ensure we the boat returned to the same position on the trailer each time.

I won’t disclose too many details and spoil Chris’ upcoming article on how and why he chose this trailer, what I will say though is that so far I’m impressed with the build, quality and how well it towed for the 10kms I drove.  Check back soon to find out more.