Originally I was going to combine this post with the next, but it wound up being a full entry on it's own, so I'll just keep you in suspence a little.
Once we got the painting done, I'm about ready for the big even... rollover! First we have to get the boat moved out into the yard where there is room. The plan was to use my Dad's tractor, pick up one end of the strongback (building frame) with the frontend loader, and drag the boat out. I did a little test jacking and found that the strongback wasn't so strong any more. Screws were failing, joints creaking and snapping... all in all I don't think our first plan would work very well. Add to that my Dad got called out of town for a funeral and I decided to try plan B.
So, I borrowed a come-a-long (cable puller) from a co-worker and Dane and I proceeded to move the hull. It is now out in the back yard in position to be rolled over.
We started by parking the Vue out in front, put the trailer hitch receiver on it, and hooked things up and pulled. Then the strongback proved it was weak in yet another place.
The crosspiece that I attached to pulled off. Fixed that and tried again. Moved about 1/2" and it failed again.
Tried a different location. Got a few inches and failure.
Ok, something not quite right here. Did some crawling and found a few braces and things that were digging into the ground, making things harder than they should have been. Got those out of the way, and jacked up the point that passed over the sidewalk and added a couple of rollers on one side (some PVC pipe). Those changes got things moving.
Sliding the hull
Several feet out and things "crunched". Did some checking and I was getting some failures on my braces that were holding up the old frames. Just a couple of places and the stiffness of the hull was handling it fine, so on we went.
Well, quite a few more feet out and Melanie calls "I think it's fixing to fall!" - CRUNCH! Now the hull is sitting directly on the strongback. All the braces cascade failed.
Although that wasn't how I wanted to test its strength, that hull is much stiffer and stronger than I was giving it credit for. It had some brace pieces lodged between hull sides and the ground and the hull had just driven them in the dirt without damage or flex on the hull.
Out in the yard and lower than it had been
I crawled around a good while removing all the various pieces and then we finished sliding it on out. It's now sitting on the stern cross piece and the sides of the bow, pretty as you please.
