Trailer front hull supports

[dcsailing1]

Trailer front hull supports.

I believe we had a rather complete discussion on the original forum about these troublesome, to us, supports. Anyway to access the old info or are we still awaiting the transfer?
As I recall, Tony told some of the owners that the front supports were really only necessary to support the side vertical loads when the amas were extended while on the trailer. I started to make some blocks to insert on the lowered front supports to use when extending the amas then thought again about just removing the front supports all together. In our case, they are mostly a major pain. They only give about 3” of clearance when fully lowered and on some ramps the hull still wants to hang on them and or must be lifted to get on top of them when loading. I have some additional chips in the gel coat from the hull hitting them while loading.
I think a more simple system may be some wooden supports that could be raised if and when we wanted to extend the amas on the trailer. Perhaps they could lie in a v shape when not being used and assist in keeping the bow aligned with the trailer during launch and loading.
Comments please.

[Ron]

Dave -

I thought PCI was talking about removing the aft deck supports, not the front. Neither seem to do much other than supporting the deck when the ama's are extended on the trailer. I don't even bother with them for short trips or leaving the boat in a marina parking lot, but I think it pays to extend them for a long haul, or if you have to unfold the ama's. I've never had a problem on a ramp, but I could see it happening if it was steep.

One better way to improve this would be to replace the one piece slide in front supports with a two piece support where the top half would slide into the bottom half, and which could be pinned at several places, including all of the way down. The current range is maybe 4 inches or so (the amount of thread left on the big bolts to raise and lower them).

Dan is working on the conversion but he is a volunteer and has other things to do (like work). I'm hoping that he can finish this in the near future so we can get the old forum's data loaded.

I'm going to move the axles back about 4 inches in a week or two. Hoping to get another 100 pounds onto the tongue, and off of the tires.

[Mark G]

My front supports are sitting in the garage - where they'll stay. I have extended the amas without them, But I do have the aft supports, I am very carefull to make sure the tiedowns are secure, and I never venture out onto the amas (I only do it to have better access to the hull for maintenance.

[dcsailing1]

Ron and Mark, Thanks for the ideas.

I appreciate all that Dan does for this forum and anyone who wants to learn more about the T28 with his postings on his site. That work stuff is understandable too. Was hoping the data was on another server somewhere and available.

Maybe our ramps are a bit steeper here with our greater tides to deal with and that's part of our problem. Think the front supports are coming off now. That's probably another 100# plus off the tongue so may have to move the axles 5 or 6 inches back to get the trailer/boat balanced better. PCI does not cut corners with the modifications they do to the trailer.

We were trying to adjust the boat with both front and rear supports lowered last night. It had been set up with a slight list the way the trailer supports were previously set. It's really pretty stable with the ama out and the rear support lowered as well. Didn't want to move at all until we wetted the main cradles a bit. Maybe some extra front support is necessary if the amas were out for a long time, but I agree with Mark that they are not needed if one is just reasonably cautious.