Page 79 - BNB Fishing mag | May 2020

CAMPING AMPING
& outdoors
BUsing time at home for an overdue project
EING directed to stay within local to give enough clearance for the keel of areas and having the local dams the kayak and centring the vessel while closed to all activities translated to loading and during travel.
Trailer Project
by NEIL SCHULTZ
Timber was always the material of choice due to its non-abrasive nature and my long history of working with it – from cabinet making to lure carving.
Nuts and washers were recessed to give smooth bearing surfaces on the skids. The rig has been built to a usable state, however with more time in isolation I may under- take a little refinement in coming weeks.
rotating chores.
A few fishing-related projects made the
Structural pine in 95 x 45mm, treated for outdoor use, was selected to give plenty of load bearing capacity and to avoid warping with prolonged exposure to sunlight and water.
Watch for details next month, if we are still unable to travel.
list to keep enthusiasm going during off water time. Most significant of those was building a kayak cradle to convert my box trailer into a slide on-slide off rig.
Step one was to build a frame with longi- tudinal beams sitting within the trailer to hold the entire rig in position.
Several things prompted this build, not the least of which was preserving my lower vertebrae when loading and unloading the Hobie kayaks.
Load bearing to be borne by the cross beams resting on the side walls of the trailer, hence the use of 95 x 45mm tim- ber, which translates to dressed 4” x 2” imperial.
My tandem Hobie is a hefty vessel, which proves more difficult to get on roof racks as the years pass. I’m not sure what hap- pened – it didn’t use to feel quite so heavy.
My previous box trailer had an installed ladder rack to carry two Hobies at once, one at waist height and the other overhead.
Two lengths of timber skids on each side of the kayak’s keel act as beds for the hull and allow the kayak to be slid on and off.
The beam inside the trailer keeps the rig in place and the rests on the sides support the weight.
A bird’s eye view of the simple drop-in rig designed to allow easy load and launch of heavy kayaks.
very limited fishing opportunities for those Instead of sourcing long enough bolts
of us living away from the coast.
Never being one to waste daylight though, many planned projects have been under- taken, if not completed. Living on a rural property dictated many tasks included periodical maintenance of fences, revege- tation plots, weed control and various other
allow a kayak to be loaded and launched in a similar fashion to a boat trailer.
for the job, threaded rod cut to required lengths was used, which provided a cheap and sturdy method of construction.
Recessing the heads of bolts is easily achieved with a spade bit.
www.bnb shing.com.au
For some time I’ve been formulating a design for a rig that, as required, can be slipped onto the trailer to carry the kayak upright.
The aim was to eliminate the heavy lift- ing involved in manhandling the kayak into the inverted position. Ideally, the rig would
Bush ’n Beach Fishing, May 2020 – Page 79
For secure travel the kayaks needed to be lifted and loaded upside down, which was the drawback with the ladder rack setup.
The skids were mounted on lifting blocks