.Let me start by saying this is my own stupid fault. Having said that, I do think there is risk here, and I bring it up for awareness, and to see if there are protection options available.
So I’m putting the boat (2020 Caracal) on the trailer after fishing by myself (most of the time I’m alone). It’s a ramp that I generally have some trouble finding the sweet spot, esp when there’s wave action from wind, for how far it’s in for an easy drive up – too deep it doesn’t raise the bow up over the bow roller, too shallow and the boat is too heavy to drive fully up (I do always wet the bunks before any attempts). On this attempt, I was about 6 inches too deep and there was a fair crosswind. So I get almost all the way up, and expect the bow to straighten before the final push. But it’s a touch too low, and instead of centering and going up the roller, it pushes off to the side. The photos show the result. Just gelcoat damage, 0.014” max depth. Just ugly. I don’t just barrel up – paused before final push as always, but with the wind it didn’t straighten like usual.
As you can see, the bolt on the upper roller sticks out, and instead of the hull hitting roller, the bolt scraped on the hull coming and going. Can’t tell you how stupid I feel. I think it’s repairable.
Question is: is there anything that can go over that to hide the end of that bolt? Don’t really want to cut it unless there’s no other option. Has anyone else come across this? And is it an easy repair?
Anyway, thanks in advance for any help.
Thanks so much for the info. Below is more info and photos from my boat that might show some variance from your tests.
First, I measured the end of the bolt to the outer edge of the black rubber on the upper roller – measures 0.565″ (measured parallel to the bolt’s horizontal center). I don’t know what the spec of that should be. However, it looks to me like it should not stick out that far, and I think the reason can be seen below. It looks to me like the fork that holds the bow roller on is compressed. When I measured, there was a 2-3 degree difference between the left and right vertical side of the forks. Is that supposed to be that way? If not, it could be that the nut was over-tightened onto the bolt, exposing more end of the bolt than intended. That would actually mean that the bolt is not too long, but nut over-torqued, creating more free end of the bolt sticking out from the black rubber roller. It may only take a 1 or 2 more exposed threads on the bolt to make it closer to the hull, or the angle difference smaller than what you observed. This is the only thing I can think might be out of spec on my rig. Everything else seems to be in order as far as I can tell, and even this may not be out of spec. I do suppose that the bolt could be too long, but I think with this observation below, it is probably isn’t.
When I measured the degree difference of what mine actually is (similar to what you were measuring above), I observe that there is only about a 5 degree difference between the angle of the bolt to roller vs. pitch of the bow where the scratch is, seen below.
Could there also have been some compression of the black rubber under the weight and momentum force of the bow, enough that may have closed the distance between the end of the bolt and hull where the scratch is? In the original post photos, I can see witness marks where the black rubber rubbed on the hull when the scratch was made, 2 black marks roughly parallel to each of the scratches. I can’t tell how much compression would be required to facilitate that, or how much there was in this case if any. I also think that may have only accounted for some of the 5 degree difference – it was also windy, and the hull wasn’t straight on the trailer, which could have caused the port side to be higher than starboard relative to the trailer, which would have made the bow where the scratch is more vertical and require less than 5 degrees to make contact and create the scratch when combined with some black roller compression.
My disclaimer is that my measurements are rough, observed with the tools I have. There could be some variance in the measurements and parallax error in the photos.
I really do appreciate you all looking into this. I really just want to understand it, and to see if there is something that needs fixed on my trailer. More importantly, though, I’m always trying to learn and be better at this process, and avoid this in the future.
Your help is very much appreciated. I have nothing but love for my boat and this company! I can’t imagine any other company taking time to understand this with a regular customer, and the fact that you are is something you all should be very proud of.
Fred
