New Tom Cat owner needs help

[John S]

FishBob, I sent you a PM, I want help!

I called the Float On Corp. today. They only sell there material in 12" wide pieces 3/8" thick and 8' long. They are cutting them to three 32" pieces to fit my front bunks and shipping them to me today. I will have to run them through my table saw to halve them to fit the 5 1/2" wide EZ loader front bunks. They wanted $108 per piece.

I am going to post some photos of my trailer tonight. I would sure appreciate it anyone using this EZ-Loader trailer successfully would tell me if my setup is screwed up. (bolt hole height, width between bunks, etc.)

Oh yeah I bought an 18" hitch extension in Anchorage today, it is the longest I can find up here and I tried everyone. Every little bit should help.

Thanks,
John

[John S]

While waiting for the C-Dory admin to set up my photo album I went ahead and made my own website with my photos.

Go to www.tomcat.netfirms.com to check them out. You'll need a high speed connection or lots of patients.

I'm interested in ALL opinions on my current trailer set-up, especially the bracket mounting height compared to others trailers.

Thanks,
John

[Byrdman]

John.... Good luck with your trailer. Take a look at what ever some of the other owners have done. Brent and Dixie on Discovery had a TC24 like the one you have and may have some photo's of their trailer set up. They had it dialed in about as good as you can get it. It truly seems that the trailer for this hull should be way simpler than all the time, money and frustrations that have taken place. Thankfully, C-Dory and EZ-Loader got hooked up and put forth a great effort to improve the hole deal...but...even then, there is nothing like users getting out and using and providing feedback for either EZ-Loader or any other competent trailer builder. Part of what makes this hull such a pain is the heigth off the ground sitting way up in the air. I would still like to see someone build a trailer where the boat sits down between the dual/triple axles which would lower the boat about 12" or more....and would make a great deal of change at the ramp. I have heard it is all about not wanting to get too wide and having to have wide load signs.... Take a look at some of the wide bass boats and their trailers....they are 8.6" beam boats, settled down between the wheel wells.

Also...your site did not load...just the advertisements for others to build similar sites... I do have a good strong, fast DSL hookup. Hummm.

Byrdman

[thataway]

I also didn't get anything than an ad for the net service...so something is wrong.

I have given a good deal of throught to lowering boat on the trailer. I don't see any way of doing it, short of a twin axel trailer, with wheels in the very back and in the front. This brings up all sorts of other problems.

I have owned other large (30 foot) Deep V's, and you can get them within 12" of the ground--but that is because of the hull shape, and then let the outter part of the trailer (wheels/fenders) be under the higher chines.

One other method, which I don't think any one has used, is to get a set of relitatively light wheels, with a short axel, and build an "I" Beam with a ball hitch right over the wheels, and a coupler at the other end--6 to 8 feet long; creating a hitch dolly, and use this to back the boat into the water. It would have to be light enough to put in a truck, or support on the front of the trailer.

We went with larger wheels and dual axles, one can go with smaller wheels/tires and tripple axels, but the tripple axle trailers are harder to back, and you ony gain at the most 2" of draft.

[John S]

Sorry about that guys. I was building the website at 3:00 AM and I should have been in bed.

Now it works. Go to www.tomcat.netfirms.com