How to place bow eye without the trailer?

[cparkerc]

Rookie question, but here goes. I'm building a flat bottom skiff and am nearing the stage where i need to drill the holes for the bow eye. Can i do this without the trailer or should i wait until i have one secured?

Thanks

Carrington

[AlanL]

Stick it where you want and then if necessary, alter/design the trailer to suit. Normally I have seen it about one third from the top of the stem.

[Rob Hazard]

The mounting of the winch on a boat trailer is adjustable for height. Just loosen the bolts and slide it up or down.

[Thorne]

I'll differ from my learned associates a little bit, as I prefer to place the bow eye after the boat is on the trailer. Some winch stands have limited adjustment, and the positioning of keel rollers and/or hull supports can modify the angle of the boat on the trailer. This is particularly the case if you'll be using an old trailer and re-positioning the supports and winch stand yourself.

In my experience, the winch should pull the bow forward and just slightly up into the bow pad, and the soft plastic V-stops are much better for our wooden boats than the stock hard plastic rollers that can let the boat bounce forward past the roller and winch. Otherwise on bumpy and/or steep downhill roads the boats can start to come off the trailer **forward** -- I've had this happen to two different boats, once coming back from a high mountain lake, the other time on a very bad stretch of highway in downtown Oakland. Caught it both times before anything more than minor damage was done to the paint at the bow, but if could have been much worse.

If the boat may be towed behind another boat in the water, it can also be important to position the bow eye low enough to allow the boat in tow to rise over waves and wakes -- too high and it may bash through waves and/or take on too much water.

Here's the new bow eye I put on my Cosine Wherry -
http://www.luckhardt.com/wherry_bow_eye1

Can we assume you are using a bow eye bolt, bedded in goop of some sort, drilled fore-and-aft through the stem? Or is it a paired set of holes through the planks on either side of the stem, dory-fashion?

[cparkerc]

Thanks Fellas,

Yes, i am using a eye bolt with two threaded rods and will drill through the stem.

Carrington

[seo]

I think Thorne just about covers it. For a dinghy that's going to get towed the placement of the eye is pretty critical. If it's mainly for dragging it up onto a trailer, I think I'd install it after the trailer is in hand.
SEO

[Breakaway]

It doesnt hurt to wait but for a skiff, the difference in placement is only probably over a 2-foot span max, for anything under 30 feet anyway. Most winch stands have that much adjustment via U-bolts as mentioned. Second, I'd add that if you want to trailer and tow the boat, 2 eyes would be my way to go. One for trailering--say about midway to 2/3 the stem height. and a lower one for if this is to serve as a towed(on the water) dinghy or tender. They even make rigs pre-manufactured just for this purpose, not that you cant just use a pair of eyes and rods like the one you have now.

Thats how the big boys do it, as you can see in this snapshot of a 30-foot tender beng towed at 25-knots behind a poweryacht. The tow line is attached to the low ring, for better seakeeping as described in previous posts. Then is looped to the upper eye (the trailer cable connection) as a backup. I understand the boats we build and discuss here will never undergoe these kinds of stresses, but works for those who do so, will work for us without worry. My two cents.
http://www.ropeinc.com/catalog/mighty-tow-boat-close-up.jpg

[Lew Barrett]

If the boat may be towed behind another boat in the water, it can also be important to position the bow eye low enough to allow the boat in tow to rise over waves and wakes -- too high and it may bash through waves and/or take on too much water.



An important enough consideration to merit repeating. As a cruising boater, I reckon any small boat I own will subject to towing sooner or later.

[Thorne]

Check out the inflatable in this video. As the poster says, it needed a longer line ( I prefer a triple-attachment-point harness) -- but the way the bow dips into the swell and fills the boat is a classic issue with towing small boats.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?120379-Constance-on-the-run

And I've had more tows in the past few years than I ever expected, as some of the TSCA rows turn into tows if the wind kicks up or everyone gets lazy and we have a 'chase boat' capable of slowly towing us back to the marina..

Looking forward -
http://www.luckhardt.com/korths9.jpg

And aft...
http://www.luckhardt.com/korths10.jpg

[cparkerc]

Thanks to all for the input!

Breakaway - now that is a tender...crazy.

I think i will go ahead and get a trailer before committing to the bow eye location. Don't want to screw things up as i head down the home stretch. I consider myself pretty lucky on this first build.

Appreciate the help,

Carrington

[seo]

I have an 8' dinghy with very flat floors aft and pronounced rub strips on the bottom. I have towed it at 21 knots without trouble. At lower speeds in a seaway it's a miserable thing to tow because it will surf up behind you, beside you, maybe join you in the cockpit.

[RodB]

Sometimes, knowing exactly where and how you want to secure a hull on the trailer is necessary to achieve quality results.

I recently completed a somewhat extensive repair on a Arch Davis "Laughing Gull" that got crunched a bunch in a wreck while on the trailer. The hull ended up upsidedown with a large hole in the bottom from one of the center rollers. The repair included repainting the entire bottom and varnishing the interior, etc. I also added a carpet covered ply platform under the bow so that the hull rested on two 2X4 runners at the stern and the wide carpeted flat at the front end. I think its important to make a trailer become a "cradle" for the hull to really protect the boat over the long haul.

The trailer was a minimalist small trailer from Northern Tools. It was lacking in real security for the hull during transport. . . ie., it did not have a good system to anchor the bow to the trailer so I fabricated the following bow rest. It was quite helpful knowing exactly where I was going to secure the bow with a "trucker's hitch" (no winch here). Smaller boats are quite easy to tie down as you can see. Note the radiiused slot in the top of the 2X6 to keep the bow rope in place. The slot for the bow is covered with a single layer of carpet glued down with contact cement.

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/Prestoboat/MIsc%202010%20March/LGrepairedrtbowangle.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/Prestoboat/MIsc%202010%20March/LGbowrest.jpg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e239/Prestoboat/MIsc%202010%20March/LGboweyeandrest.jpg

RodB

[Breakaway]

As the poster says, it needed a longer line (

+1 And I'd add that its also important to adjust the length of that line so that the boat and tender are in synch with the seas. That is, adjust so that when the boat is on a crest, so is the dink; when the boats in a trough, so is the dink. Speed control and monitoring for changes in wave train is what it is, and of course I realize that it takes a lot more skill to do this with a sailboat than with power. Just saying that's the ideal.

Keivn

[AlanL]

Looking nice there Rob. What do you have between the wood block and stem?

[jerry bark]

My two cents: I like the bow stop to be positioned just above the bow eye. and the winch so that the strap runs just below the bow stop. this way you will be holding the bow in place quite nicely and not have the problem that thorne describes of the boat coming off forward.

remember that with any load in a car it is far more likely to come forward in a panic stop then to go off backward due to acceleration.

don't forget your transom eyes for the hold downs.


Cheers
jerry

[MiddleAgesMan]

Yep. Bow eye goes under bow stop.

On most small boats the eye is best located somewhere along the lower half of the stem. There seems to be a natural human inclination to mount it too high. Pick a spot that suits the eye and then lower it 10 or 15%.

[RodB]

Looking nice there Rob. What do you have between the wood block and stem?


A piece of carpet is glued down with contact cement. I agree with some of the comments here on the location of the bow eye and the angle of pull to the winch. In this situation I did the best I could with what I had to work with... but, in an optimal situation, I would have the angle of the winch pull be somewhat downward and forward so the the hull would not lift at all with a sudden stop. The bow stop above works fine in this regard, but could be improved to be ideal. The budget for the repair did not allow for any dramatic changes to the trailer, only repairing the boat hull and sheer rails, etc.

RodB