MacGregorSailors.com

BK wrote:Thanks for info. I was hoping to get around welding though.
The latest on Channel Isle trip. Dave's engine overheated half way there and he turned around. Tim Made it to SBc and met Rich. They both went to SC and then Tim will sail to Catalina.
We are going over to meet him on Friday at 2 harbors, Catalina.

Too bad that Dave couldn't make it! That's the same issue I was worrying over when I open the gearcase and busted off the bolts. Maybe we'll just need to do another Ch.Islands cruise in Sept!

Here's my most recent trailer tire experience. I got the boat new in Nov 2004. I figure there were about 6000 miles on the tires max and they got pretty chewed up on my trip to Lake of the Woods. It almost looked like an alignment problem. The tires that were on were Garlisle 4 ply nylon ST225/75D15 rated at 2150 lbs. Taking the boat and trailer weight minus the tongue weight and dividing by 2 it seems a little close to the limit for my comfort. I replaced the tires on the way back with steel belted ST225/75R15 rated at 2540 lbs. These tires are actually bigger in both width and diameter than the first ones so I had to raise the fenders. I did this by taking them to a welder and had him grind off the front bracket and reweld it to the fender flush with the bottom; this cost me $20 and effectively moved the front of the fender up about 2" which resulted in the center of the fender rising about 1". This gives a comfortable clearance. The original tires got pretty hot but these new ones don't seem to get any hotter than the Suburban tires so I assume I'm much better off.

A friend has a West Wight Potter 19 and he said he was going through tires a lot. He had someone look at it and he said he could fix it by bending the axle to align the wheels properly. After he did this the problem was fixed. I measured my spacing and found the front outside tire to tire measurement to be 93 5/8" and the rear to be 94": a difference of 3/8" inch. Does anyone know if this will cause excessive wear?

I read in a BoatUS trailer mag article that trailer boat tires are only good for 5 years and should be replaced even if they look good.

Ive seen this in print a number of times, but knowing that often these articles are sponsored by someone trying to sell something...so Im questioning this.

How many car owners replace their car tires every 5 years? Very few - usually because you drive the tread off in miles (30-40k nowadays) before you reach the "time limit"

Trailer tires are loaded at roughly 2x car tires, so they would wear faster of course. You can still gauge the life left in miles by monitoring the wear in tread depth, I think.

Anecdotally, my impression is most of the failures reported here arent tire wear, but some other trailer failure (bearings, brakes overheat, tires rub on fenders, etc.)

So whats up with the 5 year replacement recommendation? Are salt water, sunshine, etc the factors that make this different or do the trailer tire companies have a good FUD to pitch?

(FUD = Fear Uncertainty and Doubt )



Of course, common sense plays in. If Im off to the Bimini from Albany (1500 mile trailer trip) in December and my tires are 5 years old, I would replace (especially if I could get some new rims as backups. If Im pulling 10 miles for day sailing, I wouldnt.

My '96 trailers original tires were bias ply ST205/75D14 rated for 1760 lbs each. I felt that this was the weakest link in the trailering system. While in theory the boat and trailer is only 3500 lbs, I think the reality with full gear is more like 3800-4000 lbs. On one trip to the Everett launch we had one of the original tires delaminate loosing a 12" section of tread. Once we got home from that adventure I purchased new ST215/75R14 radial tires rated at 1870 lbs and new wheels. This gives me 3740# + 300# tounge weight for over 4000# total which I feel is sufficient. I don't think the tire ratings are so close to the edge that a few pounds over will blow them. The have some safety margin built in.

I also just finished installing the BWY disk brake kit. Even with a flush kit my drum brakes were loosing their effectiveness, plus my inner seals were well worn and I was getting a lot of grease spray on the boat. Since I was going to strip things down and install new bearings and seals I decided to just go ahead and replace the brakes as well. They were rusty the last time I had them off and they were even worse this time. On the starboard side the linings came right off the shoes when we pulled the drums.

The nice thing about the kit (it's a Tie Down one) is you get everything new right down to the nuts and bolts, even the lug nuts. Todd at BWY says they have stopped selling the stainless kit as TieDown had problems with the rotors warping. My kits rotors are galvanized with aluminum calipers. Stripping off all the old drum stuff went surprisingly easy and the kit bolted on perfect from there. I put a reversing solenoid at the actuator and just punched a hole in the internal check valve as described in the instructions. After a simple bleeding of the brakes we were ready to roll. The stopping power is far better than I ever had with the drums, I now get zero grease splatter, and the solenoid tied to the backup lights works great. With everything exposed, rinsing will be much more effective.

I also had a great experience this past weekend with the mac trailer and the sling lift at the La Conner marina. While they say they don't do sailboats, or trailers with bunks there, they had no problem with the Mac. It's really wierd to see your boat hoisted 8' in then air then flown to the water over a bank and down 30' to a dock at low tide. What made it so easy were the horizontal bunks on the trailer. They may be different than most, but they work great with sling launches.