Bow winched up too tight.

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Mar 23, 2004
119
- - Paradise, CA
My 216 ended up with a dent in the bow where the winch pulls the bow against the "bow rest" (or whatever it is called). My old bow rest was a blue soft plastic roller which Hunter has since upgraded to a V-shaped rest which I have installed. Hunter told me that too much pressure between the bow and bow rest will heat the plastic softening it and, in my case, causing a discolored dent. The V-shaped rest is supposed to take care of this by distributing the pressure over a larger area. But...one of the guys in my club with a Thistle clued me into the real trick: Don't winch the bow enough to even touch the bow rest. Duh! I now winch the bow to within about 1/2 inch of the bow rest and stop. There is absolutely no reason to winch it tighter! This way, there is no stress on the bow at all. I have found that the boat will expand enough when it gets hot to force the bow against the bow rest! I can't even imagine the pressure on the bow when I used to winch it up tight then the boat expanded in the sun.
 
B

Bill Perry

Soft plastic

The issue of denting the bow with the trailer is really one of the soft plastic. I had suggested to Hunter that they increase the size of the stainless steel piece that the bow ring is welded to. If they did that, the load would be taken by the steel instead of the boat and everyone could treat the boat and trailer normally without special measures for this boat. Hunter really has done a poor engineering job and should step up and fix all the faults.
 
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