Page 110 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

CHAPTER 21

A BOAT ON THE ROAD

Back in the 1970’s we loved boating and had storage space in the large ‘Maltings’ at home
in New Bolingbroke to keep belongings for other people. Things like boats in the winter,
coaches out of season and boat trailers in the summer. Our haulage business had been in
operation for a couple of years but had as yet not begun to make great demands for space
at home.
This story from about 1975 is about one of these boat trailers!
A fellow member of the Boston Motor Yacht Club, (a grand title for a club for enthusiasts
with all kinds of motor boats of all shapes and sizes, some were even posh too), needed to
get his boat home to Alford at the end on one particular boating season.

As moving boats had been a particular
“talent” of mine at one time, he
persuaded me to move it.

The only trailer we had available was far
from ideal as boats are peculiar,
precarious things out of water.
They vary greatly in shape and
underwater design and need propping
up and holding steady and things like
that!

(Picture of similar boat but the trailer is
different.)

The trailer was large enough and strong enough but its props were all in the wrong places
for THIS boat. I had given the matter considerable thought, the boat to move was only very
light as boats go, a ‘plastic’ cruiser.
Lengthwise it was shorter than the trailer and about the same width.

I had provided plenty of motor tyres and large wooden chocks to prop the boat, together
with ratchet straps to hold the whole thing together.

To tow it, I only had my car and the only previous boat it had towed was our Merlin Rocket
dinghy on a trip to Helensburgh in Scotland and back.

My four wheel pride and joy at the time in fact was a lovely bright red mark2 Jaguar
saloon. This was certainly powerful enough and boss of the job except it was not designed
to tow large boats.

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