LAUNCHING

[JOD]

I found it impossible to launch my recently acquired BR20 without immersing the trailer and floating the boat off. The videos on the Swallow website show a fairly steep slip but I am in West Mersea where the hard is shallow. Obviously I had to hose down the trailer with particular attention to the hubs and to flushing out the inner tubing but this requires some support from others. Fortunately I was able to arrange for friends to help me so did not try the trick of using the webbing taken round the rear trailer frame back to the winch to pull the boat off but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has tried this or other methods to make launching easier. I see that there have been events at Ullswater and Coniston where the launching site is similarly shallow to Mersea.  I think that there will be owners like me who would welcome advice and opinions on launching in these circumstances.

[Graham W]

JOD,

You should never have to immerse your wheel bearings to float the boat off, no matter what the gradient - even on the flat.  The problem (as usual) must be with your trailer.

One solution is to check the trailer rollers.  If they are quite old and the black squishy type, chances are that they have degraded to the point where they have deformed and no longer roll effectively.  This is a particular problem with the keel rollers and may not be so obvious when the boat is off the trailer and the rollers are not weight bearing.

If this is the case, you should replace the rollers with harder plastic versions (usually blue Maypole or translucent orange Stoltz) and keep them well lubricated on their axles.  I use food grade silicone lubricant https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ambersil-Grade-Silicone-Lubricant-400ml/dp/B006ZKT0TQ.

Once you have sorted that out, a good way to shift the boat initially is to but your shoulder against the stem of the boat, brace your foot against the winch post and then to push horizontally in a rocking motion.  Once it gets going, and assuming that the rollers are now working, the next task is to stop the boat from rolling off too quickly!

[Jonathan Stuart]

I agree with Graham. We have to largely submerge the trailer wheel on our BC26, but even that isn't to float her on/off but because of the boat's weight. She rolls on the rollers and the trailer is submerged enough so the "transition" between aft rollers and water is more gentle than with smaller boats. On our BayRaider Expedition (so, same hull as Jod's but heavier boat) the wheel's rubber never quite touched the water. It would take a shove to get her rolling, but once moving it was hard to stop her. Do what Graham said and you should find launch/recovery is transformed. Finally, the longer we owned the BRe the further from the water I would park the trailer, esp for recovery - we used to get a couple of inches of tyre in the water (although even then the water level was never up to the wheel's steel). I then decided that having too much of the boat in the water during recovery was aggravating the problems of not recovering straight, because the boat could float out of alignment.

[Peter Cockerton]

Jod

After you have checked and tried the areas Graham has outlined which hopefully will resolve your launch problems check the noseweight of the trailer with the boat on. Also look to see if the bilge runners are rubbing against the rollers effectively jamming the free movement of the roller. I can assure you that if setup correctly the launch procedure is as Graham has described, recovery should involve just getting the swinging arm of the trailer just under the water so the bow glides onto the arm, with the strap on the eye walk forward to the winch keeping the strap taught and gently winch until the bow starts to ride up on the arm. Wait a few moments then until the boat self aligns and start winching.

If the noseweight is excessive it suggest the axle is too far back on the trailer so the hull has to overcome the tipping point before gliding off. It’s just come back to me how I resolved this I moved the winch bracket fixing point on the trailer a few inches back on the trailer frame, this reduced the noseweight and helped the boat slide back lifting the bow slightly as it went. My old BR20 would glide off with the slightest push, a bow line with a couple of turns around the trailer horizontal bars was normally used to keep the glide under control.

I have just ordered a trailer for my new BR20, this time going for unbraked and the yard reckon 3.5 mtrs from bow stop pad on the trailer to centre of the axle will achieve the correct noseweight. The new trailer weighs 170 kgs and with the unladen boat weight of 500kgs that still gives me 80kgs for engine and the usual bits and pieces. The CLH trailer unbraked came in at 310 kgs by the way.



Peter C

[Rob Johnstone]

I had a lot of trouble with launching from the trailer of my BC23 until the rollers had been lubricated and adjusted correctly. I traced the issue to the alignment of the rear rollers on the trailer matching that of the bilge keels. Adjustment of the rollers so they were outside of the bilge keels and moving weight to the rear of the boat whilst launching and recovering did the trick. You have to watch having too much weight to the rear whilst towing for it aggravates the dreaded trailer sway, hence the adjustment of the weight distribution for launch and recovery.

[Mikecambray]

I replaced the three keel rollers on Juno's (BC23) trailer and it has made launching and recovery much smoother.  I am going to try the Stolz rollers to see if I can get it even easier as I noticed on the very shallow angled Dunstaffnage slip last week that I still needed to back winch (running the winch strop round the front trailer cross member and back to winching eye on the Bow) to get her moving.  Once she was on the rear cradle she was away!

[Rod Shiers]

If I can add to this with my recent experience. I too have had all the stated problems with the trailer and I sail at Carsington which has shallow slipways. I've munched up rollers because the aft roller set twisted and rode up on the keelson. I chatted to Matt about this. He advised against moving the rollers out to straddle the bilge keel because of the reduction in support for the hull. Instead I shortened the roller axles by 20mm (10mm at each end). I trimmed the protruding ends. This has increased the clearance for the rollers and seems to have done the trick. I also did something similar to others to assist with the shallow slipway recovery. I stood on the stern deck whilst my pal got the boat properly onto the first rollers. This made life a lot easier. I also have deformed keel rollers and have taken the tip on Maypole. Hope this is useful.
Rod Shiers
Gracenote BC23

[Rob Johnstone]

I see that my previous post on this subject was a little ambiguous, if not downright wrong. For clarification about the position of the rollers that I adopted with Vagabond and Riff Raff - I moved the rear trailer rollers so that each pair "straddled" a bilge keel, thus providing support both inside and outside of the each keel.  It provided a satisfactory solution.

[Mikecambray]

Stolz rollers now arrived, but I notice they need a slightly slimmer axle than the stand CLH trailer rollers.  It's never simple!!

[Sea Simon]

I've been considering a similar mod to ease launching.

Found these on eBay, item numbr 222811540305, £15.
But not clear exactly how "hard" they are? Hardness would seem to be critical, within reason, if I am to change my existing black rubber rollers.

I measured my spindles at 19mm, might it be best to recheck?

Where did you get the stoltz parts please? I've not seen a uk supplier as yet.

Other: discovered my first trailer issue was that the rear swing beam was not mounted square relative to the two main longitudinal beams. Corrected that, but position is only maintained by one pinch fastening per side, so that needs permanently sorting, as it seems that swing beam could perhaps have been forced out of alignment?
A lot of trailer work to do yet.

Have to say that I find that my CLH trailer is not that good, in terms of boat launching, recovery.
My Honnor Marine Drascombe trailer (superficially a very similar design, and similar size) could quite easily pick the boat up off the grass, no water involved!
Added 16/6/19 following posts below.
Checked. And my Lugger trailer was plated as built by Honnor Marine, Lancashire, 2010. Not many photos unfortunately.

[Graham W]

The Maypole and Stoltz rollers are made of polyurethane, whereas the one that you have found on eBay is PVC.  I suspect that you get what you pay for and the PVC one, while looking like a Maypole roller, may not be as good.

Stoltz is a well-known US brand and can be bought in the UK on eBay, as long as you don’t mind paying the transport and customs charges.  There is also a Spanish (?) internet company called Waveinn.com that appears to stock them.  However, they get very poor customer reviews on Trustpilot and I wonder whether they are part of the infamous Marine Megastore stable under yet another new name.

As for CLH, the photo below shows where they came from, and it shows.

[Sea Simon]

Thanks GW,

I will take your advice and leave those ebay rollers!

I now see there's been quite a few issues with CLH over the years. I wonder if their agricultural trailers are any good?

My local trailer parts depot has no polyurethane or acetal rollers, nor any suppliers!
 I did buy a couple of u-clamps to help secure the swing beam.
Still struggling to find a supplier of hard rollers at reasonable cost, and reasonable postage too.
My rollers are a pita. But not so much that I will pay >£100 for two 8 inch rollers!
The boat won't be back on the trailer until September at earliest, so time enough yet?

[Graham W]

These people stock Maypole rollers https://www.e-trailers.co.uk/boat-trailer-parts-91-c.asp.  The rollers can also be found on eBay.

Nine out of ten sheep prefer Ifor Williams trailers.

[JOD]

Well, it seems that I am not the only one to have problems launching. Happily I am on a swinging mooring and in no rush to use the trailer but it will have to be faced sooner or later. The info provided will hopefully assist. 

[Mikecambray]

The weld at the bottom of my winch post failed whilst delaunching at Dunstaffnage yesterday (photo 1).  Nobody was hurt and it was in the early stages of winching in (bow was in the swinging cradle rollers) so no life boat launch.  Chris at CLH was very helpful on the phone and is dispatching a replacement on Monday.

I had a look around the other trailers on site whilst I was sorting everything out and noticed that Indespension do a braced winch post (shown in photo 3).  I am going to contact them on Monday to see if it might fit my trailer.

Trailers always seem to be a source of anguish but the Bramber Swinging Cradle trailer on my Drascombe Coaster has been the best.  As Sea Simon says it will pick the boat up from the ground and I can launch and delaunch single handed with ease (much lighter boat of course! c.450kg).

I notice there is no drain hole at the bottom of the CLH winch post so water sits there and corrosion from the inside might have ben a factor in the winch post welds giving way?

Fingers crossed this doesn't happen to anyone else, so posting this as an advisory.

Andrew at CLH has sent me details of nylon keel rollers that are harder than the black rubber ones I currently have.  I might give those a try.

I suspect that if we all work with CLH we can give them lots of ideas for improvements, which from my contat with them so far they would be open to trying.