Trailer ordeal over

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Just a little update for all those friendly enough to have offered advice.......

You might recall my many questions about safe and legal trailering. Well yesterday I collected my 22' Weston on its newly serviced twin axle trailer from Norwich and brought it down to London. Thank you all for the advice about all of which was followed and the journey went without a hitch -pun intended :)

Can I call myself and expert now?
 
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Re: Nearly expert

It's good news that you had no problems. But with regard to your last question, it's very bad news: unfortunately, you have completely missed a golden opportunity to learn some valuable lessons and accrue true expertise.

Expertise, as anyone knows, is a byproduct of completely or partially cocking up a process, possibly many times over, which you have simply failed to do. Incurring huge unneccessary expediture, endangering life or causing actual bodily harm, ruining holidays, causing traffic chaos, or encountering any other problem whatsoever as a result of your own stupidity would all have increased your level of expertise immeasurably.

Example foul-ups in this instance could have included a jacknifing, boat falling off trailer, boat hitting low bridge, theft at service station, gearbox or brake failure, or at least some damage to something or somebody. Sadly, and in noticeably stark contrast to many others on this BB, you still have no first-hand experience whatsoever of these dangerous possibilities.

Indeed, your trip will hardly even hold anyone in awe at the bar, now will it? "Oh, I remember when I trailered my boat down from Norwich, and we had to stop for some petrol at a garage! And then it was quite warm so we had to open the car windows! Next time I'd use the M11 rather than the A12... "

Well done anyway;-)
 
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Re: Nearly expert

Matts is absolutely correct! Look at Haydn's (HLB) posts. He's done more gearboxes than the rest of us put together!. And look at what he has learned from it!...........actually - what has he learned from it?

Nick
 
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Re: aha, so you are an expert!

so what happened with the trailer lock? You locked the trailer and lost the key? You locked the trailer at home and left the key at home? You locked the trailer and and whilst doing so you slashed your fingers? C'mon c'mon we're all wanting to learn from this, and not gloat or snigger at your misfortune, of course. Boatie people never do that, it's simply not in our nature.
 

jfm

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Trailer locks. Non autobiographical post

Lemme guess. You got one of those "long shackle" trailer locks, and locked trailer onto car. The lock is so long it makes the end of the trailer capital T shape. Then you manouevre in a tight spot with tight turns, and erk you need a new £400 bumper for car. £16 lock is so blimmin strong it just suffers minor abrasion.

JFM
 
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Re: Trailer locks - autobiographical

Or you got one of the little balls that hide away up inside the cup - came back from a sail - ran the trailer down the slip by hand - dropped the boat on to the trailer - hauled the rig up the slip with a rope tied to the towball - forgot about the little ball in the cup - tried to drop the cup on to the towball - jumped up and down on the coupling to make it go on - swore at it - jumped up and down on it some more - swore at it some more - remembered fitting the security ball - turned to see newly acquired mass audience watching with morbid interest - nonchalantly went and got key from side-pocket of car door - removed ball - hitched up trailer - drove away - vowed NEVER to return to that slipway ever again.

Hope it didn't happen that way - it still makes me cringe - ten years later!!

Best regards :eek:)

Ian D
 
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Actually, no one has mentioned the most common trailer problem. You are dressed in the clean trousers ready for a day out and you remember how the last time and the time before that you got grease over your pants from the tow ball. You swear you are going to remember this time and what happens? - "Nick - whats that over your clean trousers? - I've just washed/ironed/bought these and look at them - you've ruined them!" (and goes in huff)

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Nick
 
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Plus the blood trickling down your shin!! Nm

No message
 

Bergman

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I used to be an expert; ie where X is the unknown quantity and SPURT is a drip under pressure.

Having just passed my HGV test I drove a 7.5 ton lorry with a 8 mtr drawbar trailer to a clients warehouse.

Reversed in with consumate skill, un-coupled and demonstrated the capabilities of the trailer.

At the end of the demo I reversed the lorry up to the trailer with such accuracy that the coupling lined up to the millimetre.

Connected the air hoses and lights, tested everything and drove out of the warehouse.

I only forgot one minor detail - the pin!

I never knew how far those flexible hoses could stretch before they broke.

The trailer was stuck there completely immobile for three days.
 
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Ooops! I have had some HGV experiences but not heard of that one before. There is no 'gentle' way of hitching up a HGV trailer - engage with a good thump and try and pull it forward - the trailer brakes shouldbe hard on with no air connected so you can 'test' the coupling - but I guess you know that now?

I'll give you another - if you take a wrong turning [particularly in Central Wales, although that's a wrong turning in itself!] and you see a little country lane going off to your right down a 'slight' gradient and there's farm stuff on the road and you think that you could drive down there forwards and reverse back into the LH side of the road so you are facing the other way - DON'T! I did and if you haven't seen [or felt] the effect of a bucking HGV tractor unit as it reverses, pushes against loaded trailer and weight is tranferred away from the driving wheels on a muddy [or whatever it was?] surface so the tyres slip [just a bit] so weight is back on the driving wheels so they stop slipping then weight back off and they slip again at a frequency of about once a second so violently that your glasses fall of and your fillings rattle!! It's ****** horrible and the farm person working in the field nearby wasn't much help when I asked where the lane led to and he shrugged and said 'nowhere' [Central Wales - remember?] and went about his business but I know he was laughing his socks off! Live and learn my friend!
 

Bergman

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Nice one Seabear

The clunk click bit is fine on a semi trailer but this was a drawbar rig with a big steel pin in (or not in) the coupling.

I left out the bit about being directed to the company office rather than the warehouse.

It was half a mile down a dead end road on an industrial estate. The road was lined with parked cars.

You know the rest
 
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