Light Board Extensions - minimise possible damage?

[Trailer Guy]

Originally Posted by SW RIB Charter

pulled over and be given a good going over.

Don't tell them that Mike, they'll be at it all the time!

[9D280]

Originally Posted by SW RIB Charter

Agree entirely. By illegally mounting your lighting on the load rather than the trailer you are asking to be pulled over and be given a good going over.

Originally Posted by mister p

The board should be attached to the trailer not the load.......

Errr by that theory every single sailing dinghy ever towed is illegal.

Projections still need marked, (e.g overhanging mast) but you can hang the lighting board off the rudder pintles with no problem. (even tho' the back end of the trailer is probably 1.5m ahead of the lights)

There are exceptions for boats, where (and I am open to correction on this sentence) the boat is essentially considered part of the trailer for lighting puposes,
Some of the lighting rules are different or not applicable when used on a boat trailer, from memory, mostly around orange markers & front facing whites when the length gets to the size you would normally need them.

[Trailer Guy]

Originally Posted by 9D280

Errr by that theory every single sailing dinghy ever towed is illegal.

Projections still need marked, (e.g overhanging mast) but you can hang the lighting board off the rudder pintles with no problem. (even tho' the back end of the trailer is probably 1.5m ahead of the lights)

There are exceptions for boats, where (and I am open to correction on this sentence) the boat is essentially considered part of the trailer for lighting puposes,
Some of the lighting rules are different or not applicable when used on a boat trailer, from memory, mostly around orange markers & front facing whites when the length gets to the size you would normally need them.

This is pretty much correct. You can have up to a 3.05m overhang as long as you have a lighting board fitted. There are different parameters for shorter lengths of overhang. But yes, essentially up to 3.05m (which would be a dinghy etc) overhang and you can have a lighting board on it.

As for fitting a lighting board to your A-Frame, again I think you would likely be covered by the law. Ironically, it'd probably be the red, reflective, triangles that would let you down!

If you can't adhere to the standard lighting regs you can have the indicators up to a height of 2.3m and the stop/tail lights up to 2.1m, off the ground... The triangles, however, can only be a max of 1.2m off the floor.

So the 'work-round' would to be to fit reflective triangles to the side of the trailer chassis* and hang your lighting board on your A-Frame.

* Is anyone really going to? Unlikely!

So before we hijack the post anymore (apologies to OP!), I refer to my previous suggestions for stopping the boat hitting the chassis rails

[wavelength]

I am worried that this may cause damage to the tubes when recovering the boat if she is not perfectly square onto the trailer

yesterday (what a nice day for boating that was-outstanding) on a local commercial fisherman's trailer...the readily available cheap answer. And if ya forget your own boots you could always borrow those that belong to the trailer

[tanimola]

Inspirational!!!

[Erin]

Back to the OP's original question.... If his trailer is far enough into the water for the boat to be recovered then the extension arms will be well under the surface. If his tubes come into contact with them then there is something seriously wrong with his recovery method.

[gotchiguy]

Originally Posted by Erin

Back to the OP's original question.... If his trailer is far enough into the water for the boat to be recovered then the extension arms will be well under the surface. If his tubes come into contact with them then there is something seriously wrong with his recovery method.

Not true. We punctured our Zodiac Pro in exactly the way he describes. There was a bit of a swell coming in and I was only 11 so wasn't able to hold it off and it just rode up and hurt itself

[Poly]

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

Not true. We punctured our Zodiac Pro in exactly the way he describes. There was a bit of a swell coming in and I was only 11 so wasn't able to hold it off and it just rode up and hurt itself

I have to say I agree with Erin. That's not so say there wasn't something wrong with your recovery method too! If the swell is sufficient that a part of the trailer that should be completely below the hull contacts the tubes then I'd have thought the risk of injury or hull damage was also quite high.

[9D280]

At the bow if I were to park my boat on the grass & reverse the trailer up to it, the boat would need to be lying on it's toobs (the way you would expect it to lie on grass without support) to manage to get the board bracket to come anywhere near the hypalon.

Now, if I were recovering off the end of a pier (e.g South Queensferry at low tide) then yes, I could see how the two might meet in a swell, but if the bars are retracted, then they should be level with or slightly behind the rear roller so should never meet the hull.

[9D280]

Originally Posted by Trailer Guy

If you can't adhere to the standard lighting regs you can have the indicators up to a height of 2.3m and the stop/tail lights up to 2.1m, off the ground... The triangles, however, can only be a max of 1.2m off the floor.

So the 'work-round' would to be to fit reflective triangles to the side of the trailer chassis* and hang your lighting board on your A-Frame.

The big problem there is that there are more than enough trailers with fully functional lighting board brackets at the "standard" height, so I suspect if it came to it you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if the prosecutors had a half decent lawyer.

[Erin]

Originally Posted by gotchiguy

i was only 11 so wasn't able to hold it off and it just rode up and hurt itself

You SB

[Trailer Guy]

Originally Posted by 9D280

The big problem there is that there are more than enough trailers with fully functional lighting board brackets at the "standard" height, so I suspect if it came to it you wouldn't have a leg to stand on if the prosecutors had a half decent lawyer.

Don't disagree at all. And whilst the interpretation of the law is down to the individual court, or QC, or whomever, what I posted is still 'the law', when it comes to trailer lighting regulations.

So I'd have guessed, if they were to rule it unsafe practice, in court, and fine you (or disembowl you, or garrot you ) then they'd have to rewrite the C&U regs pertaining to trailers. Or more specifically the lighting.

Still, as you correctly stated, there's plenty of trailers out there conforming to the normal lighting board practice, that the likelyhood of you having to do something out of the ordinary is slim. But I feel it'd be pretty poor show if you abided by the letter of the law and they took you to court and found you guilty of not adhering to the C&U as stated.

[HughN]

Silly question, I know but...

If I had a trailer where all lights and the numberplate meet the requirements but, when the boat is on it, they are all obscured, is that (a) legal and (b) more legal than having the board attached to the boat (load)?

Feel free to sally forth with sill answers.

Hugh

[gotchiguy]

Originally Posted by Poly

I have to say I agree with Erin. That's not so say there wasn't something wrong with your recovery method too! If the swell is sufficient that a part of the trailer that should be completely below the hull contacts the tubes then I'd have thought the risk of injury or hull damage was also quite high.

Probably was! Think it was only the second or third time we'd ever tried it!

Was a pretty tricky slip actually, and after that time we never used it again. I think the story would be different now however, because in the same situation I could hold the boat off whereas before I couldn't. The the swell was probably about 1.5ft so 3ft up down makes quite a difference to the boat coming up and forward the falling down onto the trailer. It was also a poorly designed trailer because it wasn't possible to remove the extension bars.

[9D280]

Originally Posted by HughN

Silly question, I know but...

If I had a trailer where all lights and the numberplate meet the requirements but, when the boat is on it, they are all obscured, is that (a) legal and (b) more legal than having the board attached to the boat (load)?

Feel free to sally forth with sill answers.

Hugh

(a) no
(b) no

Same reason Halfords sell you a kighting board with no triangles to put on the back of the 6 bikes you have hung off your boot lid - the bikes obscure the legal stuff like lights & number plate.

[9D280]

Back to the OP & the dimensions.
Granted, this is my trailer / boat setup, but anyone with a long shaft engine isn't going to be too dissimilar.

I trimmed my engine right out so it was poking out as far as it would go (almost horizontal). Distance from the transom top to to the tip pf the skeg - 113cm.

Trimmed in to "tow" position (approx 45 degrees), distance from tip of skeg to bottom of transom on the horizontal - 96cm.

The way my trailer is set up, the chassis bars stop pretty much level with the bottom of the transom. So, I could legally fit lights to the end of them & my O/B leg doesn't break any overhang rules. BUT I still had to extend them for the lighting board because the leg / prop bag obscured the number plate.