A friend and I bought our first sailboat! It is a Morgan 22 (similar to Catalina 22). We need to transport the boat to our home Marina which is about 25 miles by water (Lake Erie) or by road. And we can't decide on the best way to transport it. Let me briefly go over the state of the boat, motor, and trailer. Photos at the bottom.
The Boat
1969 Morgan 22, 2700 pounds. Was used just last season so should be seaworthy. It is currently in barebones off season storage configuration sitting on the trailer. It does have the motor mounted on the back.
The Motor
2018 Tohatsu SailPro 6 hp, 25" longshaft. Looks great and runs great according to the previous owner.
The Trailer
Built in 2005. Frame looks to be in good condition. Single axle, it hasn't had tires or bearings in 10 years, tires look pretty dry rotted, hard to tell bearings while it is sitting there. Trailer hasn't left marina in 10 years. Previous owner says he does grease the bearings occasionally. He does not think it's roadworthy and has warned us against trailering it as is.
The way I see it we have 3 options. Neither of us have much experience with boats or trailering them so I am curious if there is a obvious choice from the community here.
1. Launch it at the marina it's currently at and motor it ~25 miles. We will set up the rigging at our home marina so this trip would be all motor.
2. Drive the trailer and boat as is. Maybe stay off highways..
3. Try to fix the trailer, at least throw some new tires on. and then drive it. The issue here is the boat is on the trailer and we don't have any place to put it while we work on the trailer. Working on the trailer while the boat is on it seems sketchy to me.
What would you do?
The Boat
1969 Morgan 22, 2700 pounds. Was used just last season so should be seaworthy. It is currently in barebones off season storage configuration sitting on the trailer. It does have the motor mounted on the back.
The Motor
2018 Tohatsu SailPro 6 hp, 25" longshaft. Looks great and runs great according to the previous owner.
The Trailer
Built in 2005. Frame looks to be in good condition. Single axle, it hasn't had tires or bearings in 10 years, tires look pretty dry rotted, hard to tell bearings while it is sitting there. Trailer hasn't left marina in 10 years. Previous owner says he does grease the bearings occasionally. He does not think it's roadworthy and has warned us against trailering it as is.
The way I see it we have 3 options. Neither of us have much experience with boats or trailering them so I am curious if there is a obvious choice from the community here.
1. Launch it at the marina it's currently at and motor it ~25 miles. We will set up the rigging at our home marina so this trip would be all motor.
2. Drive the trailer and boat as is. Maybe stay off highways..
3. Try to fix the trailer, at least throw some new tires on. and then drive it. The issue here is the boat is on the trailer and we don't have any place to put it while we work on the trailer. Working on the trailer while the boat is on it seems sketchy to me.
What would you do?