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When the day is done, and I'm ready to pull the boat up on the trailer, I clip the the boat to the trailer, and then crank it up. How tight should the crank be? I've gone through one crank, bending the washers that hold the two bolts of the crank to the trailer as well as the crank, and now I'm onto a second crank and the same thing is happening. Any suggestions or comments on what you do? Thank you.

I don't crank it all the way up to the stop because before I'm done I always have to do the MacBump anyway so why bother??

Rick

mattabbe wrote:When the day is done, and I'm ready to pull the boat up on the trailer, I clip the the boat to the trailer, and then crank it up. How tight should the crank be? I've gone through one crank, bending the washers that hold the two bolts of the crank to the trailer as well as the crank, and now I'm onto a second crank and the same thing is happening. Any suggestions or comments on what you do? Thank you.

I suspect that you may be cranking the boat with a full belly of water in her.

My is difficult as it is without water ballast tank full to crank.


Be sure to open the gate valve after you float the boat onto the trailer. Make sure the daggerboard isn't hung up on anything and leave the motor in forward gear and idling so as to help with the cranking et cetra. Then begin cranking until it gets hard then stop. (Wait while the boat drops more ballast water). While you wait a bit, splash a little water on the bow V bunk. The boat will slide up and over the V bunk better when it is wet. Crank again (you will notice it getting easier). Until it gets harder again, then stop and let the tanks tip more water out. Keep up this routine until you are able to bring her up to the nose block. Like Pokerrick1 pointed out, getting the nose a few inches away is all that is necessary. After that it''s the "MacBump".

Good luck
Big T

"MacBump"?

Try floating her on until the bow meets the staunchion "V" . I then bolt the bow ring to the staunchion using an adjustable turnbuckle...No cranking whatsoever...Although you may have to sink the trailer a bit deeper. It means choosing a good launching ramp. I have a mate in the South West with a [ white / ugggh!] who launches off a beach in shallow water and disconnects his vehicle and pushes th trailer in further...having fitted a third wheel on the drawbar...and not just depending on the adjusting small wheel. It just rolls right on in... and the same with retrieving...
If there finishes up being a bit of a gap, dont worry about it...With the turnbuckle, she's not going anywhere...

Puggsy

mattabbe -

Do a search on the terms MACBump & MAC bump. There are many, many, many pages of this topic in the archives...

It's been suggested to use "liquid" soap on the bunks at specific pressure points of the boat. Then, the boat will "slide" easier, and A "mild" Mac bump will slide her firmly onto the trailer front.

What Big T said - - - - I open the ballast valve before I walk it onto the trailer and enough water has exited the tank by the time I am ready to crank that cranking is usually pretty easy

Rick