Trailer Park Boys

The decaying trailer that came with the boat was obliterated by rust.  It's a miracle that I was able to nurse it from Shilshole, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and to my house to be honest.

Building a new trailer started in earnest in September of 2020.  At that time, after talking to various suppliers at the boat show, I drew up something in CAD, and I drug the old one down to Centralia to talk to WooDat, a company that specializes in fishing and wake towers that was starting to make some waves in the custom trailer biz.  They were actually great in person, but I after a quick meeting, I shelved the project again for some time.

A couple years later, this came to the top of the stack again, and after some more inquiries, I settled on finalizing a deal with a company up north in Blaine, Tuff Trailer.  Talking to them gave me confidence that they could copy my old set of wheels, but with a few improvements that I had in mind.  While they build aluminum stuff, they pushed me to using galvanized steel for stiffness, due to the exceptionally long tongue length.

In addition to the normal stuff, I wanted to mount the keel crane on the trailer, similar to the way a Melges 24 works.  I also wanted to be able to carry a gin pole, for stepping the mast if no crane were handy.  Finally I wanted to incorporate a dock box, made by Taylor, and a ladder at the bow too.

I would have loved to refurbish the original trailer, but she was too far gone.  A painted steel, box-frame trailer is a very bad idea, especially for saltwater boats.  There is simply no way to rinse the salt off the inside of the tubes, and they have no chance of survival here in the PNW.

I still don't believe that this cradle, complete with the blue webbing strap was able to cart the 1800# bulb, first to my house, and eventually up to Betts Boats.

In order to communicate with the builder, I made a series of CAD drawings, and I gave Tuff Trailer the old warhorse to copy.

I give these guys an A-.  In truth, everything came out fantastic, and they did let me visit before galvanizing, so I could make some adjustments.  The only error had to do with holes that I had specified.  Unfortunately, those were not drilled with any kind of accuracy based on my drawings, so that is something I'll be dealing with down the road after repairing the fiberglass bunks.  Still, I would not hesitate to do business with Ram, Deep and Dave again.