peterhull
Active member
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to reply, it sounds like you are quite knowledgeable on this subject. Yes I agree the combinationn system does get expensive and that is a concern.I fear that youre making things very complicated for yourself. I look after 4 trailers which spend much of their lives sitting round doing nothing and they all need a couple of hundred quid spending on them every year to keep them roadworthy. That includes, brake systems, bearings, jockey wheels and electrics. They are never immersed but not used enough to stop things slowly getting gummed up and failing. So unless your road trailer is used frequently, say once or twice a month throughout the year, I’d expect you to need to spend time and money on servicing the thing.
Given the servicing costs and the hassle that entails, I’d tend to opt for the simple life with a trailer which you use to both transport and launch. Accept that before driving down to visit us you need to service the thing: take the wheels off and check bearings (replace them if you’re worried about their condition, doesn’t take long and bearing are cheap), make sure the brakes are working, check the electrics, jockey wheel and hitch. Carry the tools and spares needed to change a bearing or brake shoe. So much simpler to my mind than going to the expense and hassle of building a launch trailer.
Final point. Any launch dolly you use will need to be able to sustain the G forces imposed by the boat as a load during towing. That’s one of the reasons why the commercially available systems are expensive, as the whole road trailer/launch dolly combination has to be constructed to meet the regulations as a whole. Constructing a dolly to put onto a flatbed trailer and then taking the combination down the M5/A30 isn’t a trivial challenge. If memory serves me correctly, the cradle needs to be able to withstand 2-3 G fore and aft and 1.5-2 G side to side and vertically. So for your one tonne of boat, your cradle/dolly will need to be able to accept loads of 3 tonnes or so fore and aft and 2 tonnes side to side. Vertical load resistance is mainly done via lashings but the support keeping the boat vertical also need to be substantial. You should talk to an engineer about this sort of stuff before committing any money to what may not be a viable concept.
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