Various (speed over water, keel boat recovery, wheel bearings, tilt trailer ...)

From: Eric Zilbert (eezilbert@ucdavis.edu)
Date: Sun Feb 20 2000 - 08:42:45 PST


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
           List hosted by www.tscnet.com
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hi all, we have had some great weather the last two days, but I had to
work and only got to go out on my bike, no sailing:(. However, I read the
digests from the last few days and thought I'd add my two cents on a couple
things. First off, from what I've read (note, never been out in open
ocean in these kinds of cond.), when a wave knocks you over, there is
usually another wave that will oblige knocking you right side up again! In
"Fastnet: Force 10" it was getting knocked over again and again that
caused many of the injuries and led crews to abandon ship. Most of the
boats that rolled had rigging losses. Surprisingly, for ocean going
racers, a lot of injuries came from loose equipment in the cabin.

The tennis ball knott meter was a favorite of the sea scouts. On the big
boat we have been sailing (sacrilidge!) the knott meter is always getting
fouled. A retractable unit is in the future ...

I have been doing some maintenance on the trailer, as many of you know I
had an inner bearing fail a couple of blocks from home. I had been using
bearing buddies correctly, but the seals were long gone. I would recommend
anyone buying a used boat replace (or at least inspect) the bearings before
going very far on them. I was lucky as the boat has traveled quite a way
since we purchased it. I am now running with new seals and bearings and no
bearing buddies. I figure I will just service them on an irregular basis
(might as well be honest).

My trailer is a Shoreline tilt trailer and is galvanized. Most of the
bolts mounting the brackets etc. are rusted, but trailer looks pretty good
otherwise. I submerge my wheels when launching, but find the tilt function
very helpful on retrieval. It really makes the boat center on the
trailer better. I want to swap out all the rusted hardware and replace
the bunk boards. I am thinking about painting the bottom of the boat too.

 Any suggestions for easy ways to support the boat while painting/repairing
the trailer? Please reply to me directly as well as the list as I only
subscribe to the digest and it sometimes takes me awile to get around to
reading them. - Eruc



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 29 2000 - 03:27:09 PST