A Trailer Sailor's Nightmare: Does Your Sail Boat have Tires?

The HideAway has four, along with the attendant axles, springs, and rust.

Driven by a nonresident wet slip rate of close to $265 per month (just over $3100 per year) the HideAways were motivated to sprout wheels regardless of additional maintenance worries.     

  

The Florida sun has an insatiable appetite for trailer tires. 

It’s sneaky too.  A tire with plenty of tread can look perfectly fine with no observable spider web wall cracks, yet fail without warning, or a tire can have all the warning signs no tread and still hold air.  I should mention that the HideAway has only left the left the marina once and that on good wheels.

I LIKED THIS TIRE BECAUSE IT SLID EASILY 

  

A Maintenance Library

The rebuilt junk yard trailer of unknown lineage has kept the hull off the asphalt for a solid decade and provided a library of trailer maintenance experience.

The most important lesson I've learned is constant vigilance  

I do a thorough inspection every month and always before the trailer moves.  That way in all likelihood, I'll trip over a tie down line, discover a wheel chock still doing its job, or my 8 foot ladder bumming a ride to the ramp before I start the truck.  All these annoyances have occurred, mercifully not at the same launching. 

With these thoughts in mind I noticed this boat in the marina.

At first glance the tire looks fine.   In fact it made the journey from the far north just last spring.  

No cracks - Nice deep tread

As I walked by something didn’t look right.  Upon inspection --

If That Weren't Enough

About a foot off the ground

The cock pit was nearly full of water and the boat was sitting on its rudder. 

  

Cockpit bath tubs are over rated

I called the owner who sent someone to make emergency repairs.

SOME WATER LEAKED INTO THE HULL

As a sailor you have to be creatively resourceful – 

 As bad as this looks they relieved the rudder stress and prevented more damage

But Wait There's More!

Sometimes the universe just does not like you that much.

Glad it’s not my turn

SMALL BOATS ROCK!

Click here for Sailing HideAway on Zazzle-

Make your own sailing gifts

 

Sailing to the Moon via the Sun

SAILING DOWN HILL

Not all sailing voyages have to include screaming, rigging wind does it?

After all sailing is about quiet contemplation of your place in space and time, being one with the wind and waves and perhaps an adult beverage as it were.

Cruise To Your Dream- Sorta

You finally leave on your dream cruise with the full realization that you must reach a mark  on the chart before dark or you will not see the sun set under the yard arm while you sip  an exotic drink and your adoring crew fans you with fresh cut palm fronds.

Why is it that  a cruise to your paradise of choice is fraught with all this stressful planing and goals?  Sailing in modern times has little to do with practically anyway so why have a plan in the first place?

So I Ask You --

Is a 200 yard cruise as satisfying as a 200 mile voyage?

Is it more stimulating to run from a storm as it is a competitor chasing you around a triangle?

Is a lazy drift among zephyrs as fullfilling as a hard battle to windward in big seas and dense fog?

Shoulder Forecast

Many people travel the world during the "shoulder season"  to avoid crowds and higher costs.

A good shoulder season for the sailor is a day when the weather looks questionably unstable enough to keep the less risk inclined ashore, but not so fearful to keel and sail to give you pause.  Of course everyone has a different pause threshold, but you get my drift, I'm sure.

Night On A Shoulder Sail

On a steamy Fourth of July night on Boca Ciega Bay we lay at anchor in the gathering darkness to wait for the fireworks to start.   Well over a hundred lost souls of kindred spirits, many of whom had  insufficient knowledge of anchoring, made entertaining efforts to throw, rather than drop, the heavy anchor overboard.   Some of them had a rope tied to it, but several  anchors were tossed lacking that accessory.

Not that we were any better.  Upon pulling the anchor a miscommunication and a lazy outboard nearly had us in the custom boat business, narrowly missing a expensive fiberglass condo.

The fireworks preshow began with an impressive display of loud explosions that lit up the sky and strong gusty wind and rain that made our bow disappear.   A normal Florida summer storm with a 20 minute duration.  After it passed a third of the hardly anchored boats were gone and another third were untangling their rodes with the clear intention seeking land.   After an hour's delay, the city of Gulfport (FL) lit the match with only a precious few boats left to enjoy the show, the HideAways among them.

With these thoughts in mind we present our latest video Sailing to the Moon via the Sun- In Light Air

Whew! Who thought that one up?   Oh....

SMALL BOATS ROCK!

Hurricane Irma and HideAway - Just One Little Thing

We learned a lot about hurricanes this year, but Irma gave us plenty of dark nights without power to contemplate our place in the universe.