Will these upgrades be found on 2015 TI & AI?

Chris:
Actually Kayakman7 is the guy who came up with the PVC pipe storage idea (brilliant). He has an "any-old" flat bed trailer with a flat wood floor (possibly used for a lawn maint trailer or somethin in a past life). What he did was just screw two 10 ft pieces of either 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" dia PVC directly onto his trailer bed mounted on around 11 inch centers (basically the boat is sitting on the keel grooves running the length of the boat). I assume he just laid the pipes down with the boat sitting on them letting the boat settle (finding it's own position (that's why I said aprox 11 inch centers)). He then just screwed the pipes down to the deck in a few places to prevent the PVC from moving around.
The whole trick is to use the right diameter PVC pipe so when the boat is sitting on the trailer, the bottom curvature of the hull in the center and the two swoops on the outsides of the PVC just barely clears the wood floor of his trailer. This way when you clamp the hull down with straps it doesn't cave in the keel grooves too much when strapped down and sitting in the hot sun. The result is the bottom of the hull remains flat and is supported not only evenly in the keel grooves, but also the center rounded portion and the rounded areas on each side (outside of the PVC pipes).
I've been storing that way for almost a couple years now and it actually works. I just went out and looked and I ended up using 1" PVC tubing, this worked out great for me, as when I strap my TI down, there are 3 cross bars that the PVC is mounted to (I don't have a wooden deck like Kayakman7's setup).
The really cool thing about my setup is I placed 9" cloth paint rollers onto the PVC (yes the same paint rollers you would use to paint your living room). I placed them in between each of the cross bars so when I load the boat, the paint rollers slide easily on the PVC pipe and work like linear bearings making it much easier to slide the boat on and off. Actually I have to be careful at the boat launches because I back up to the water, release the straps and the boat slides off the trailer all by itself, LOL the first time I did that the boat just floated away because I wasn't expecting it, and I had to go chase it down. The cloth paint rollers also prevent any scratching on the bottom of the hull from sand. I just bought an 8 pack of cheap rollers (I think they were about $10 bucks for 8 of them), and they are lasting pretty well (really cheezy setup but hey it works like a champ). The only downside is every time I go to a boat launch, some guy at a place called 'trailers are us' places his business card on the windshield of my car (figuring I really need help I guess). But hey the whole setup has been working for quite a while now and I have several thousand road miles on the trailer now and hundreds of launches without any problems (we trailer the boat back and forth to our other house in Key West once a month or so, it's 350 miles each way). To date I have about $300 bucks invested in the whole works ( the HF trailer was $140 dollars on sale).
I have the PVC tubing stick out the back of the trailer about a foot, that really helps guide the boat onto the trailer. I have another paint roller bolted to the back of the trailer mounted sideways, mounted to a couple L shaped aluminum brackets I made with 1" PVC tubing in between covered with a paint roller, that when I lift the boat up, the boat rolls nicely on that paint roller. I looked at all the different urethane rollers for boats at places like West Marine, but those darn things are around $60 bucks, my paint roller thingy didn't cost more than two bucks to make, and it works great. It's all a couple years old now and still going strong every weekend launching and retrieving.

I just went out and measured my TI stored in my garage with the AMA's strapped down to the top of the boat. I measured about 25 inches from the deck of the trailer to the tops of the AMA's (with a little room to spare). If you went for 26 inches I think you would be safe (if you end up using the 1" PVC tubing), of course if you use larger PVC you will need to be higher.
I know I'm going against convention, as pretty much every other TI trailer setup I have seen is using the uber expensive Hobie cradles, I simply couldn't afford them, and after looking closely at pretty much every boat trailer I could see with pretty much any other type of boat out there, not a single one ever had the cradles mounted sideways (none that I could find anyway), pretty much every trailer I could find always had the cradles mounted lengthways to the hull so the boat can be easily slid onto the trailer, and apply a steady even force over a long length area (across many spars) supporting the entire hull. Besides we have to store our TI on the trailer in the sun down at our Key West house, and the last thing I want is to come out and have the bow and stern of my TI melted and sitting on the ground in the hot Key West sun.
Hope this helps
Bob

Alan,

That’s exactly the setup I was imagining. Unfortunately I do not know how to weld … but I know someone who does. We hauled out old Oasis tandem on and off my SUV for years without too much trouble so getting the top TI down wouldn't be that difficult ... but we're no spring chickens either.

Could you please tell me where you found the original trailer (make/model)? Any idea what the max carrying capacity of this trailer with modifications is?

Looks to me you’d even have enough room to add some large-diameter PVC pipe to store/transport the masts.

Thanks so much for the pic ... great idea/trailer.

Pat Mc.

And all this time I thought I came up with the idea for using lengthwise PVC hull supports. From the fall of 2010 with photos a day later: viewtopic.php?f=78&t=33106&p=130728#p130728

Apparently great minds think alike.

The trouble with the same system on the Islands is that you still need some way to support the amas, if you leave those in place while traveling.

Tom:
Your shop is like Edison's and Bell labs combined, with so many things in the works it's truly amazing to me (huge respect), I would love to get together just to compare notes one day with you (and see all your stuff). The big one for me would be digging deeper that electric trolling motor setup you came up with a few yrs ago for the PA. I think people still speculate about that one. As you know I'm big into human power and experimental electric propulsion systems that I would be able to employ to do the EC challenge in the class 6 division (experimental electric). I spent years trying to develop something that would give me 40 hrs of continuous power at a couple hundred watts, and always came up short. That's the main reason I came up with my wing sail amplifier thingy, trying to wring every ounce of propulsion out of every watt of energy put in, but that's a whole nother story.
Kayakman7 probably saw your idea and ran with it, his was just the first one I saw in action at a Watertribe event.

I'm sure Hobie isn't too happy with whoever came up with the PVC tubing cradle guide idea (basically equal to and maybe superior to their $250 dollar cradle setup all for about $10 bucks in materials). (Not me..... Tom Kirkman ( LOL)). (humor)
Bob

Tom:
After looking at your post from 2010, your right, I'm sure your the originator of the concept/idea (since this pre-dates the TI all together). It appears even Matt thought it was superior at the time.
I found using 1" to 1 1/4" diameter PVC tubing under the TI, the curvature of the hull bottom just clears the deck or cross bars of the trailer, with the AMA's folded in, they sit nicely against the deck or cross bars. On my trailer I have some of that water pipe insulation foam (Keiths ROID foam) taped down with electrical tape (in a spiral fashion like you would tape bicycle handlebars) to the trailer frame under where the AMA's sit when folded in, this makes a nice cushioned landing zone for the AMA's. That black 3M electrical tape holds up amazingly well over time in the sun. The only downside is the side of the hull does get scuffed up a bit where the AMA's rub during transport without putting something in there to protect the hull and AMA from rubbing.
Bob

If the amas have support that should be fine. They're not so heavy they require lengthwise support like the hull, I wouldn't think.

Funny thing, I still use Hobie's cradles on my Islands, although I've never quite liked the "fit" which I think varies from cradle to cradle and from hull to hull. Tough to get a really good match between them.

Thanks for all of the information Bob, and thanks to Tom for the original idea.

Bob do I understand correctly that with your 1" tubing, the center curve of the hull between the scupper grooves and the outer curve from the scupper grooves to the sides of the boat end up contacting the wood deck of the trailer (or crossbars if no deck). providing additional support when you strap the boat down ?

And you are using 10 Ft lengths of pvc for your TI ?

When you load the boat does it just ride up on your rear roller then go smoothly onto the pvc pipes ? I was wondering if the square ends of the pipe gouge into the boat ? I was toying with the idea of heating and collapsing them in the appropriate direction at the ends.

Are your pipes flat from bow to stern or did you curve them upward at all to follow the curve of the boat at the bow and stern ?

I'm chomping at the bit to buy a TI after learning about them less than a month ago. In the interim I bought a used Revo 13 and a paddle only Oasis with a trailer after renting a Revo 11 one time. I'm having so much fun with these kayaks on our Texas lakes and rivers. I don't think it will be long before I take the deeper plunge for a TI. Just needed to do a cheaper sanity check first.
I have wanted to sail most of my adult life but our current drought conditions make launching a trailerable fiberglass sailboat impossible.
I think the trailer I bought will work for the TI if I extend the tongue. I'm putting new hubs and 12" tires on it this week and working out the other modifications needed to be a proper kayak carrier. The one that was on the trailer didn't support much and had been poorly welded from galvanized EMT. I'm surprised it hadn't previously fallen off of the trailer frame.
It's a steel trailer that I can easily make things for. I would prefer aluminum but I don't weld aluminum enough to do it well.

thanks for all of the helpful information

Chris

Chris:
I went out to the garage and crawled under the trailer to take pics of my PVC pipes, sometimes pictures tell better.


Here is the paint roller that the boat rolls up onto when loading, and the two pieces of tubing sticking out the back of the trailer that help guide the boat when retrieving. You can see the tubes, and the 3 point on the hull sitting on the trailer cross bars (they only touch when the boat has been strapped down a while). The stern actually rests on the roller. Ignore the orange strap and the brown thingy mounted to the stern (that's my planing hull modification)


Here is a view from the front, I pushed one of the paint roller tubes into view so you can see it. Like I said the boat is strapped down to the trailer tight, and the 3 curved surfaces are touching the cross bars.


This pic shows the fronts of the PVC ten ft pipes, as you can see in the front they no longer contact the hull for the last couple feet because the hull sweeps up in the front, I don't worry about it too much.


This pic shows the bow support, I have that roid foam on the front covered with electrical tape for the bow to rest on and support the bow, it's been on there a long time now and is still holding up great.


I don't think you need to do anything with the ends of the pipes, plastic isn't going to scratch plastic much if any, and who cares, it's the bottom of the boat.....

Hope this helps
Bob

Right - if you cut the pipes a bit longer than needed, they don't contact the hull fore or aft because the hull will round up above and beyond those points. You can also round the ends over with sandpaper to further reduce any chance of a sharp edge skinning the boat, but I doubt it'd happen.

This is the same principal but for car topping.
Instead of PVC I used two pieces of timber and glued on outdoor carpet.
I can't afford two Honda engines Bob, but I wasfascinated with the roller for the end.
The grooves in the roller are self centering. I thought it was such a clever idea
I just had to buy one.

I electric winch the frame, through the mirage drive hole, into the ceiling.
So the TI has been sitting on the longitudinal bearers for over two years.
So far no problems.
I do have a block that sits under the mast step, in addition to the bearers.

Cheers, Brian

Brian:
That's a funny story about the engines. Every time I need to buy one I take my wife out with me, then get us stranded some how. The first one was the day we bought our first TI in April 2010, we picked up the new boat at the dealer and launched it late on a Thursday afternoon. We went offshore (the wind always dies here in the early evening). With no wind at all and with the tide going out we got stuck just outside a very dangerous pass in a 6 mph outgoing current. We pedaled with everything we had to get back in. The wife gave me a free ticket to buy an emergency gas engine. Once I wore that one out and wanting another one I took her out again, this time in 25 mph winds to the south down west of key west trying to go against a 6 mph current, again we got in trouble and I got to get a more powerful and reliable engine (Honda #1). To get honda #2 I took her about 5 miles off shore to go diving on the reefs, it took forever to get out there, so the suggestion was made, two motors are alway faster than 1 and we could get to the dive sites faster (permission granted). It's just how you play the cards (lol), true story.
Bob
Actually she used to hate going out on the TI because it was too slow especially in the typical light winds we have in south Florida. The boat is now very fast and she loves it (go figure).

I took a different tack (no pun intended).
I promised a romantic lunch at the Currency Creek Winery.
You negotiate the Finnis River as below and they have a phone
at the end. They pick you up, give you tasting and lunch and
drive you back.
Problem is the River is bounded by 6' reeds. Great fun
negotiating but no wind. So her phantom pedalling meant
that we had to turn around before reaching the lunch
location. Suggested a motor would solve the problem and
got the permission.

Should actually take her there one day now I have the motor.
If the single motor broke down, would I get permission for a second?

I made this like 3 years ago. Supports the hull, the amas, flaps keep them from rubbing the hull, can add J cradles, bike rails, and all is detachable to carry other kayaks/bicycles in any combination if needed. It also allows for east ama swing out for easy setting up and launching. Box can hold straps, drives, life jackets, spare parts and tools. Can leave my AI on it indefinitely if need be, and when in basic platform mode, serves for maintenance or repair. A self contained unit.



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Thats done it, now further modifications required.

I attach carpet around the amas with a bungee to stop them rubbing onthe hull.
How archaic compared to your vertical flaps.

They look like solid rubber.
As I load the TI wih the Amas attached (yep, I'm the exception Bob) I will have
to make sure the rubber doesnt cause too much friction.

Very professional job.

http://www.SportsRig.com is the manufacturer. This whole deal was specifically designed for the AI's back when they were introduced in 2007/2008. The designer went on to design the yakima Rack&Roll trailer .. that one being aluminum and the SportsRig is steel. They no longer show the side-arm thingy's that give you the upper deck, instead now on their website they show a T bar for the upper level which, for us, wouldn't work too well.

I believe the suspension is rated for 450# .. its basically a motorcycle swing arm design using a mono-strut. Bearings are NOT water proof. While I do like it, I got it as part of a smokin' deal along with a lightly used AI. If I was to purchase new, I'd either go for the Trailex or the Yakima Rack&Roll .. or if not new I'd prolly mod a jetski trailer.

I really only trailer when going out local and/or in the salt water .. anytime I'm traveling distances I prefer to rooftop

_________________
Alan W.

Papaya AI2 to replace my well worn V1
TheTwins - His/Hers 2007 Papaya Hobie Adventure Island's (v1.00.01)
.. and a Hobie Outback SUV