30th January 2010 - lifting Suzi of the temporary trailer, which was just about to collapse. This is the sailing club's (Glasson) boat lift, which has come in very handy this year !
All this work has only been possible because Peter Moonshine kindly loaned me his launching trolley to enable me to sort out the problems at my leisure. I can't thank him enough.
30th January 2010 - lifting Suzi of the temporary trailer, which was just about to collapse. This is the sailing club's (Glasson) boat lift, which has come in very handy this year !
Ready for the newly acquired trailer, which turned out to need a lot of work !
May 2010 :
The above two pictures were taken on 21st May 2010 when the trailer was ready for sand blasting. The wood planks that had been placed on the side rails have been removed, the piece of angle is what I'd prepared to strengthen and widen the keel base, just resting roughly in position.
You can see the wooden planks on this photo and I'd also removed the steel keel catchers from both sides and the front locating structure, this photo was taken on 15th May when preparation for the redesign was well under way, as was thee one below showing the front structure:
Well the sand blasting day arrived, 22nd May, and I was all keyed up to start welding some new bits on before painting it. Disaster, well it seemed like a disaster, when some of the rust was knocked off there was no steel left! Ian and Steph said it wasn't worth taking my money off me to sand blast it.
The lower flanges of the main longitudinals where full of holes, actually worse than in these photos as more rust fell off as we worked on the trolley ! this 'weakness' extended well over the area that the boat would cover so some drastic measures were necessary.
Ian's mate Stephen, who makes trailers for a living, made some proposals and investigated the price of steel to replace the back three metres of the longitudinals, the keel supports and a couple of crossmembers - £300 ! This was rather a shock and prohibitive, particularly as I was unhappy with other parts of the the trolley.
I'm calling it a trolley now but originally it was a road trailer for Maistro, a Cobra 750, built by Keith. Keith moved his boat away and after lying around for several years the trailer was bought by Mick for his boat Aegis. Dennis said he bought from Keith? Mick probably made a few changes to adapt it to his boat. When Mick sold that particular boat the trailer was left around and used by Ken for his Sadler 26 and then acquired by Dennis, who had some modifications made, for one of his boats. Dennis sold the trailer to Ian, who made further modifications, and I bought it from Ian earlier this year, 2010. So from being a super road trailer, over the years, it had degenerated into a launching trolley.
After a month or so I decide to take the plunge and have a go myself using some steel channels that I'd scrounged ten years ago, my doesn't time fly ! The channels came from Snowhill Maiden's original trolley.
I cut off the front and rear crossmembers and the ends of the keel supports:
This is the front Crossmember that was cut off by Dave with his Stahl cutter, I'd cut the rear one off myself. The rear was very similar. The scrap was mounting for Dave to collect.
Another Dave sold me the yellow channel which made a new front crossmember. You can see the first part of the channel stitch welded on by Michael to stiffen up the longitudinals and the front section lying on the top of the trolley, same both sides.
Here you can see the 'new' rear crossmember, which Ian had intended to use as a front guide post but it came in handy to use as a crossmember, a bit rusty but sound. the above two photos were taken on 25th June.
This is Michael welding the new keel supports on 29th June. I'd last welded thirty years ago when I made Suzi's original yard trolley. In those days we used a crane to recover the boats from the dock and the old slipway was very steep with a lightweight winch. No way could you recover a cruiser on the old slipway. By an incredible stroke of luck Michael had just started out on his career as an apprentice welder and he was keen to help. I reckon I could have got proficient welding again but not as good as Michael. I grasped the nettle and set out on my own and was rewarded by help almost immediately from Michael and his Grandad.
This is the left longitudinal channel tacked into place ready for stitch welding - 29th June.
The red strip is 75 mm x 75 mm angle used to widen the keel support area. These angles were recovered from the old keel guides seen in the third photo. The plate at the top is the start of the new wider keel support. the plates on this side are recovered from scrap bits from Hornet. The plates on the right-hand side are steel left over from the steel used as ballast in Suzi, thirty years ago.
This was the situation on the morning of 2nd July. I'd worked on the trailer most days over the last fortnight.
On that Friday night, 2nd July, when I got home my knee, which had been playing up all day, was very swollen. Too bad to go on the Viking Invasion the next day.
Work came to a halt and on Tuesday Frank died, the funeral was on the Friday, 9th, so we went off to Cornwall with a damaged knee. We came back on the next Wednesday but one and I eventually went to the doctor who gave me some strong tablets to take the swelling down.
August came and I had to start again somehow, Michael had been raring to go ever since we stopped. I'm not sure when we actually started but the next photo is the trolley upside down taken on 11th August, probably first thing before we started work:
At the front you can see the plate I made to take the two indispension units that I'd had in the garage for several years taking up valuable space. This was obviously made before the 11th and work had been done on the top since the last photo in July. The trolley had a jockey wheel attached but these aren't strong enough to cope with the vagaries of launching and recovery so I had removed it. The two small wheels will not steer but they'll cope with everything else.
Dave had turned the trolley over previously with the JCB, with help from Michael and Martin.
This shows the outrigger fitted to support the keel guides in the next photo. It also reveals the poor state of the axle fixing and the remaining old parts of the trolley in general. I have plans for the axle fixings and will remove the brake back plates during phase 2.
I don't seem to have any photographs between 11th August and 2nd September but work progressed most days till then.
This is the trolley on the morning of Thursday 2nd September. I'd chipped, ground and wire brushed as much rust as I could the day before and done the last bit of welding on the rear axle crossmember.
Here the trolley is ready for the first coat of paint. You can see the flanges we fitted to the rear axle crossmember to strengthen it. When the boat is being manoeuvred on the trolley the front two rear wheels will be lifted off the ground to ease the steering so I thought I should stiffen the crossmember up. You can also see the supports for the keel guides and for the rear guide posts. Here I've just painted the complete trolley with detergent and pressure washed it off, as per instructions on the paint tin. Fortunately it was a lovely warm sunny day so the water dried off in no time, well while we had lunch.
Norman brought the trolley to the 'washing place' and raised it on blocks to make the underneath accessible. The JCB held it firmly in place.
This was taken on Friday afternoon, after Heidi's funeral wake. you can see a new member of the crew, Suzie, who joined us yesterday to help with the painting. Norman also insisted on helping to paint. This was how we left it on Thursday night - too tired to take photos then !
The first coat above is Hammerite smooth silver. I got 2.5 litres and it took all of it. I wanted the finished coat to be yellow so I had ordered a one litre tin from the internet, I couldn't get yellow locally but I needed 2.5 litres ! The nearest I could get from Berry's was gold so I bought another 1.5 litres. Suzie and Norman helped again.
The end of phase 1, now ready to put Suzi on to it.
Today 9th September, Suzi on the trolley and blocked up for the winter.
Michael Swarbrick - 7th September 2010