The Eagle Has Landed

Or, at least the trailer.

This morning's project was to pick up the trailer cum boat, dump the boat, and keep the trailer.

Here's how it looked up close for the first time:

First problem we encountered is that the previous owner scavenged the winch off the trailer. Oops. Found some electrical wire in the boat and lashed the boat to the roller and crossed our fingers...

Drove slowly for a mile or so until we made this gas station. The tires, while mis-matched (one side has a temporary spare tire held on with three out of five lug nuts) seemed to be holding air, and our electrical wire lash job seemed to be holding.

There was an Evinrude outboard sitting inside the boat. I pulled the starter cord and the motor is not frozen, so I figured it might be worth keeping or selling. Made a stop at home to drop it off. I'll figure out what to do with that later.

Off to the landfill. The masher-guy in the bulldozer made a bee-line for us. I think crunching up boats is a rare treat for them.

He helped us pull the boat off the trailer with a cable...

 Which of course slipped off a few times...

But we eventually got it on to the ground.

 

Its kind of sad seeing it sitting there. I wonder how many happy hours of family fun that boat delivered over the years.

Well, those days are gone now. As soon as it was off the trailer, the bulldozer guy couldn't wait to crunch it up...

And just like that, the Larson is no more. The sound a boat makes when it is being crunched into splinters is oddly satisfying.

On the way out of the landfill, they reported our net weight difference at 1140 pounds. I guess that sounds about right for the old tub. Cost me $20 in landfill fees. Add to that the $50 I gave for the boat/trailer, and the $20 in gas I put in my friend's truck, and I'm still in this thing for less than $100, pre restoration costs. Not too bad.

In the end, here's what I was looking for. The trailer is back at my shop, awaiting some minor mechanical restoration and a paint job.

I'm going to give her new wheels and tires, new bearings and (wasn't counting on this) a new winch. The good news is the lights and wiring seem to be ok. I'll re-do the plug end and put on one of the new round kind. It has the old four-prong flat kind now. I've got a couple of months to figure out how to reconfigure the bed for the Pelican. I think I'll just remove the roller assemblies, and fabricate some bunks out of PT lumber. Or maybe I'll see if my brother in law the welder can weld in some brackets for the bunks. Or maybe I'll see if there are commercially available bolt-on brackets I can get for that. Either way, I need to finish the boat first.