70 MPH to Windward

Nice long weekend for Labor Day.

I decided to go get my boat. I drove to Clarksville Tennessee, cleaned up and put away everything in the boat and drove back to northern Virginia all in two and a half days.

Thurday (Sep 3rd): Drove 700 miles to Tennessee. (11 hour drive)

Friday: had breakfast, checked out of the hotel my wife and I stayed at and went to get the boat ready for the trip.

Checking Tires

Wrapping Mast

Wife: "Where is the mast held up at?" Me: "up there."

Cleaned Up / Organized For The Trip

We went to the scales at a local truck stop to weigh everything. The truck, boat/trailer came out to 19,520 lbs. We hit the road around 1:30pm (CST). I wanted to drive past Nashville to get away from the city and get to a rest area East of the city to look things over. 1.5 hour drive, I stopped to check things out. I found out two lug bolts on the front right wheel and sheared off.

The trailer wheels have 6 lug bolts. The middle and rear axles have surge breaks but the wheel with the broken lugs doesn't have anything else on it.

I made sure the lug nuts were tightened all around and drove for another hour and a half to look things over again. No changes. By now, I was almost at Knoxville, TN. Decided to drive and see how far we would get. By the way, the road conditions on I-40 between Nashville and Knoxville was not pleasant at all. Things improved a lot once we got to I-81.

We got up to around Roanoke, VA by the time we stopped. Towing the boat used up a lot more fuel than I would have thought but understandable since the engine needs to work harder to pull all that weight. Stopped at another hotel for the night that thankfully had space to park the trailer without any issues. As I was looking things over on the boat, a guy stopped by and we chatted for a few minutes. He complimented on how nice the boat looked and talked about his time sailing out of San Francisco.

Saturday morning was a late start. But, we drove the rest of the way without any issues and got to the house around 2:30pm (EST).

So looking at Pacific Trailers website, it seems they do have parts for replacing the lug bolts. Which is good, because I was starting to think I had to replace the whole hub. Big difference between spending $50 for a hub or $2 bucks each for new lugs.

A nice lady in the neighborhood saw me and commented to me how nice the boat looks when I dropped it off on Saturday. I was messing around the boat and she came up to say hi and told me she saw a police car by the boat Sunday afternoon. She explained my situation that I just moved to the area and I'm going to move the boat somewhere else soon. Apparently, someone called the police and they gave me a warning ticket for having a trailer parked in a residential zone. If it was a paying ticket, the fine would be $40 bucks.

People sure do like their stupid rules around here.

Overall, I'm happy that I finally got the boat moved and I can move forward with my refit. First thing, is getting the lug bolts/nuts replaced, and a storage place for DIY work.

Lug Bolts Knocked Out

Broken Lug Bolts

Hope everyone had a good and safe Labor Day weekend.