Saturday Oct 19th 2024 was a very successful day, in that, we had 6 volunteers both on the boat & on Putney Embankment switching the rib from one trailer to the other. Stephen had the chance to do some boat handling whilst others measured and unbolted and manoeuvred the supports in place on the new trailer in readiness for Femti.
The new trailer comes from DeGraaff in Chobham, Surrey and I quote the website here, “It’s a SB1500-2 ADJ, 1500kg, single axle, 2 wheel braked, swing beam multi-roller boat trailer. The totally welded hot dipped galvanised chassis incorporates two adjustable swinging beams fitted with 32 nylon ‘ V ‘ bush ribbed rollers, making loading and unloading the boat a lot easier even in shallow water. This trailer has a double layer chassis for extra strength. The adjustable drawbar allows the length of the trailer to be altered to suit the size of boat. The drawbar can be removed when storing the boat and trailer in a garage.”
On Saturday Michal used his car to drive the old trailer and boat to Putney Embankment whilst Steve towed the new trailer and parked it adjacent to the old one. We reversed Femti on the old trailer into the water and Mark & Stephen took the boat for a short spin up to do some manoeuvres around Wandsworth Bridge whilst the rest of the team tried to mirror all the positionings from the old trailer and avoiding the multitude of rowers.
