Michael's Boatbuilding Blog: New year. Old trailer.

Happy New Year!

In the last post, we left off with the holes I drilled in the transom as preparation for bolting the motor to the boat.

However, before I can bolt the motor to the boat, there are a few other things I need to do. One is to seal the inner diameter of the holes with epoxy in order to water seal them and protect the wood. Also, I wanted to do some work on the trailer. This work would require lifting the boat. Obviously, that is more easily accomplished without the added weight of the motor.

New bunks for the trailer

I have never been fully satisfied with the bunks I built for the trailer, back in July 2015. At 4 feet long, they are longer than the bunks that came on the trailer when I bought it. However, after building and installing them, I still felt they were too short to sufficiently support the boat. In time, I also began to dislike the way they only supported the boat on the narrow end of the boards.

I decided that I wanted longer bunks that were also wider.

The first set of bunks I built for the trailer back in 2015.

So, my kids helped me raise the boat and prop it up on a 2x4. I removed the old bunks, and tore the carpet off of them... and decided that I could reuse it all.

The boat lifted up onto a 2x4

The new 5' 7" bunks in position

I cut some new 2x4's to a length of 5' 7" to use as the new bunks. I used the old bunks as supports, since they were in perfectly usable condition. That's not to mention they're already measured and drilled for the brackets. I screwed the new bunks to the old ones in a "T" fashion, so that the wide end of the board would support the boat.

Between the repurposed carpet and the leftover I had from the original roll, there was enough to cover the full length of the new bunks. I stapled it on with stainless steel staples.

After re-attaching the bunks to the trailer brackets, I also replaced the center roller with a new one. The old roller had hardened and gotten rather grimy.

New center roller

The old roller had marked up the underside of the hull pretty badly.

Another of my goals for this work on the trailer was to lower all the supports enough so that the bow would fit into the "V" of the bow roller. Even with the roller's bracket raised as much as possible, the bow never actually rested on it.

So, after everything was installed, my son helped me lower the boat back onto the trailer. All that was left to do was to crawl underneath and tighten a few bolts. Everything seemed to go together pretty well. I'm definitely happy to have more support underneath the hull now.