Small Boat Voyages

Decided the main winter project this year would be to move Tarka onto a new trailer.

The original trailer is still a very good trailer but it is slightly underrated at 1890kgs. This may have been the exact weight when first commissioned. The whole rig now weighs 2000kg when fully loaded and ready for cruising. I carry a fair amount of equipment in the car to keep the trailer within legal limits but this results in extra time and effort rigging and derigging, so in theory this should save time and make sailing trips easier.

The work envolves setting up the guides, bunks and rewiring the electrics.

I wanted to replace the built-in electrics with something that can be easily added for trailering and removed for launching. The complication here is that, because of the trailer length, it needs side marker lights that sit on stalks about 4 metres from the front. The rest of the wiring comprises standard 7 wire trailer lighting cable that connects to a removable light board. I’ll add a 7 pin connector onto the back of the board so the cable can be detached for storage. I need to break into the cable part way along and create a 2 wire joint that branches out in two directions to supply both lights. The marker lights also need to be detachable.

The keel guide should help with alignment when retrieving. The large ‘V’ is something that will assist when there is a cross current. The guides and bunks will be carpeted to protect the hull paintwork.

This new trailer has a ladder frame. The rollers are arranged in four pairs in straight horizontal line. To get the rollers to marry up to Tarka’s slightly curved long keel, I made some measurements and calculated that the foremost and aftmost pair needed to be raised by two inches. In addition these needed to be converted to make them wobble in order to get all rollers to contact the keel and provide the same support.

The last job before transferring the boat is to set up the electrics. Initially the lights were hard wired onto the trailer i.e. wires passed trough the frame since it is a trailer that has never been in the water. All the wires had to come out and a new loom made up that could be added and taken off easily.

Transfer itself is a bit complex because I dont have an accurate way to position or shape the bunks. I reckoned the best way woukd be to do the transfer without bunks, and use temporary props to support the boat and then fit the bunks to suit.