Another trailer question

[November Charlie]

'Goalpost' style trailer guides. Anyone have any feedback on how sturdy they are? I know they won't take a direct hit, but as far as keeping a fairly light boat centered while it's hauled?

Never once used them, but my Bristol Skiff is a real pain to haul. Flat bottom with two skegs, needs to sit just right and stay sitting just right while I haul it. Real shallow aft so she floats all over the place, and I'm alone on the boat whenever possible. I'm over trying to center it, crank it up, push it back and center it, crank it back up...

(Planning to just fabricate a couple myself. Couple pieces of flat stock, couple short pieces of round stock with PVC pipe over them, hole through them so I can pull the pipes off once the boat is out so I can limit how much I'm seen using them. What's leaving me wondering is how long I need to cut the round stub for the pipe to mount on to maintain strength.)

 

[mixman]

Mike, my guides are one-piece aluminum I believe (like a giant U-bolt). They're covered with something to protect them and the boat and have held up for nearly 10 years. You can see them in the slideshow here:

http://www.floaton.com/index.html

If that's something you're interested in send me a PM and I'll put you in touch with my contact at Float-On in FL.

 

[j-d]

Mike, If I understand your question... Our PVC's are slipped over a couple square tube aluminum brackets. They are very good at centering our 4000-lb pocket cruiser as we load it onto the trailer. They "spring" but that's OK, seem to help the centering process. BUT!!! I'd never count on them to help hold the boat centered on the trailer on the road.

I see ski boats, inboards some of which have skegs, loading onto trailers with what I'll call "Side Guides." If you don't have to go deep with the trailer (we do), then the Sides would center your skiff in a positive no-other-way kind of positioning.

 

[November Charlie]

Yeah, I'd prefer the bunk style side guides, but I'm doing trying to do this on the cheap, and I have the parts around that I can spend twenty minutes cutting, grinding, drilling, and welding to put on goalpost style ones. Pretty much exactly like any other ones I've seen, and even installed on other's trailers, just a slightly different mounting style. Plus, my boat is narrows out aft, so there'd be a bit of a gap anyways.

If PVC will keep a 4k boat centered without breaking off, should stand a chance for a 1500lb boat, I'd think. I basically need a second set of hands to keep the skews between the bunks while I pull it up the ramp, and a couple pieces of PVC won't keep talking to me and moving around the boat like people will if I bring them along. My dog already does that enough, but he's useless helping me get the boat on the trailer.

 

[j-d]

I have our trailer goal posts a little closer than the beam of the boat. Same with the four on out boat lift at home. They spring a little to accommodate the actual width, and that helps centering.

 

[onthecreek]

They work great for me, too. Mine are also PVC over square stock, covered with leftover bunk carpet to clean up the look. The inner tubing is a little higher than the rub rail. There's flexible PVC over it. It's basically spring loaded. Will take a good hit and softly push the bow back to center. The tops of the flexible PVC is prob 2' higher than the rub rail so don't have to ever worry about the rub rail resting on top of the guide. I've seen that happen to other boats.