MacGregorSailors.com

Excellent! Glad it worked out for you, Steph. Looking forward to the photos.

Glad to hear that Steph

Safe and sound

The ugly crack



Look how much angle the tongue took pulling the boat out....Caitlin strips off the hardware while Harry and I "manage" by filling out some spreadsheets



Cutting the brace to size

The Fulton 1600 was abused about 5x over its design limit but it held!! I actually broke it backing the trailer on flat land and catching it on a lip. It's repairable.



Brace strapped in place. Thin wood spacer is filling gap between 4x4 and the tongue caused by lip of I-beam. The white dock line is a safety in case the tongue separated.



Harry quickly fabbed a 7 pin to 4 pin adapter for my lights. I gave a tail light issue on my van that cropped up on this trip

Bravo Zulu, team

Happy to hear that all ended well!

I'm glad I was able to help you. It was great to get to know you and Caitlin.

Leona and I ended up have a great day on the water Sunday. Winds were a little light but temps were great. We splurged on our annual Macho Nachos at Thames Waterside in Bristol, RI overlooking the beautiful harbor.

Awesome.

Great folks on this forum.

Just had to grimace at your misfortune. Last June my axle broke roughly the same way with the boat onboard. Tires rubbing the hull and all......A 4x4 and some cheap utility line held the axle until Freedom was home on the hard. Two axles now adorn the trailer and I want to inspect the tongue.......As to the brakes...A 4x4 Ford Ranger usually tows my boat short distances without the brakes...initially from New Port Ritchie to Texas when I first bought her....

Quick update

I decided to repair the trailer in kind, and plan a new trailer after season 2016.

I'm getting an extra 2 feet of heavier box steel tongue in place if my broken one, but staying one axle for now.

Catigale wrote:Quick update

I decided to repair the trailer in kind, and plan a new trailer after season 2016.

I'm getting an extra 2 feet of heavier box steel tongue in place if my broken one, but staying one axle for now.

Thinking the extra 2ft should make the trl sway less !!

J

Highlander wrote:

Catigale wrote:Quick update

I decided to repair the trailer in kind, and plan a new trailer after season 2016.

I'm getting an extra 2 feet of heavier box steel tongue in place if my broken one, but staying one axle for now.

Thinking the extra 2ft should make the trl sway less !!

J

I'm no mechanical engineer.
So why didn't macgregor do this from the start? And would 4 feet be better?

I think the answer, Russ, from an engineering perspective, is the goal of the factory to be able to fit two trailered boats in a shipping container. Second to that, as has been explored on other "Why didn't the factory add..." threads is again the goal of the factory to control the cost of the of the final product.

And as to why the two feet would be better, it indeed would make the trailer somewhat less likely to sway, but it also puts your trailer further in the water whilst loading/unloading and hence you can use more shallow angle ramps without your car's rear axle (or the trailer's whole tongue) in the drink.

kmclemore wrote:And as to why the two feet would be better, it indeed would make the trailer somewhat less likely to sway, but it also puts your trailer further in the water whilst loading/unloading and hence you can use more shallow angle ramps without your car's rear axle (or the trailer's whole tongue) in the drink.

Now that's a good plus to lengthening the tongue. I see the keel boats use these long 10' extenders. It's quite involved.

I bet it would be fairly easy to do this on the alum trailer. It's just bolted onto the aluminum I beams.