Trailer: I don't know trailers but this one is actually older than the boat, seller said it was the original trailer but the trailer is a 1963 and the boat is a 1968. It's a rusty old trailer that's well past its safety limits. The trailer is one of the first things I am going to replace with a nice galvanized one.

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I did not have allot of options with the trailer, It was fairly worn out and rusted through. I knew when I purchased the boat that the trailer would have to be replaced almost immediately regardless of the previous owners assurance that the trailer would hold out another year or two.

I could either take a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money trying to rebuild/restore the old trailer from the little that was left and still have the chance that it would fall apart simply due to old age. or I could simply spend the money and get a new safe, galvanized trailer.

My goal was to restore the boat not the trailer, and given how much work the boat needed I chose to spend the money on the sure bet. A new trailer would be safer, and easier to maintain as well as a tremendous load of stress off my back. Due to conversations on both Fiberglassics and the Glasspar owners association I chose to go with bunk instead of roller. In my opinion roller had more maintenance problems, was more expansive, had the possibility of damaging the old fiberglass, and with today's slick glide bunk designs roller held no real advantage over bunk.

I hunted down the best deal I could find, which at the time turned out to be a king trailer from boat country. Turns out that the manufacturer of king trailers is just up north of boat country so there is no middle man or shipping fees to get your new trailer to the dealership. Plus they where willing to take my old trailer off my hands in trade for adjusting the new trailer to properly fit my boat. a small value but worth it if you consider the shape my old trailer was in.

now that the choice was made I thought the rest would be smooth sailing..

On my way to the dealership, boat in tow on the old trailer, not ten blocks from home the old trailer gave out. Both drivers side bearing literally disintegrated on the first 200 feet of highway. I got her pulled over just in time to find a wheel bairly hanging onto the axel. Another 100 feet or so and the wheel would have torn free.

Not to get into to much detail, 3 hours later our tow truck finally shows up. Just in case you where wondering a Seafair Sedan can in fact fit on a standard flat bed tow truck. However if you love your boat I would not advise watching them do it, nor do i advise driving with the truck watching your boat sway side to side at 55 MPH down the highway.

The old trailer was pretty much trashed at this point, so our only option was to continue on to the dealership boat on tow truck, in part, luckily, since the tow truck took so long to show up the tow was at a slight discount.

We finally got her to boat country and to our surprise the sales guy had stuck around for us to show up, we dropped her off, paid our dues to the tow truck driver and headed home exhausted with arrangements to come back for her the next evening after work.

We get there late the next day to discover that the dealership has no way to change the ball on our hitch from 1 7/8 to 2inch (even though we had warned them that it would be needed and they had assured us it wouldn't be a problem) the only thing they had available was a hand wrench,... (keep in mind hitch balls are fastened on with 3600 Lbs of torque) we searched a phone book for local garages and U-hauls trying to find a place that was open, we found a U-haul that said they would be open a bit longer in a near by town, we rush there and rush back. of course the dealership has closed up for the day. but they where nice enough to move my boat out past the gate for us. but I am left to figure out how to hook my new trailer up on my own to discover I need an additional 2 inches of tong height for the new trailer! we get one of the dealerships after hours staff to help raise the tong just high enough to allow the tong jack to swivel out of the way and decided that while she was ridding low she was not dangerously low.

we took it easy on the way home avoiding bumps and dodging pot holes, Ill switch out the tong extender some time next weekend till then she's finally back home safe and looking good on her new perch. The old tie down strap is not very good ill need to replace that ASAP as well.

I am certainly happy i did this the "Easy" way.

done 7/12/05