I will be trailering my new (to me) Nacra 5.5sl a loooooong way. I can't seem to find anywhere in the past postings a conversation about whether or not people cover their boats when trailering to protect it from road debris and grime. In the AWESOME in-house, on-line, store (thanks Jake for pointing out from time to time that we have such great resource and I thing it would be great if we could all support one of our own )all I see are covers that are not suitable for trailering.
So what does everyone do? Since mine is a one-time thing I thought about wrapping the pontoons in bubble wrap and a tarp and ducktaping (quack) the hell out of it. Or covering it in cardboard but I figure that would disintegrate in a good rainstorm. I've seen sheet of plastic cardboard but I have no idea where to find it. Thoughts?
Thanks everyone!
Greg
Greg
Greg,
I wouldnt put any kind of loose covering on your boat when you trailer it for a long distance. The wind and road vibration will chaffe and sand the hulls.
If you spray the boat with Sailcote make it easier to clean the road grime off the boat when you arrive.
You could get a roll of shrinkwrap. Take off the tramp and wrap the shrinkwrap around each hull all the way from front to back.
P.S. I'm not talking about bubblewrap; shrinkwrap is a smooth plastic.
P.P.S. Actually, it would be better to wrap it from back to front, so the overlaps are facing away from the wind.
Or use painters masking tape. The blue stuff you can buy cheap at home depot. I have done it for my car, when travelling to car shows, it comes right off, with no residue. Will not mess up the paint. Its cheap, easy to put on and off, your corner store will have it.
Obvioulsy just tape up the areas you do not want road grime to stick to, example the bows, ect ect ect...
Robi,
Awesome idea! I was at Home Depot this morning and looked right at it but it didn't *click*. It would stand up to the wind pressure huh? I think I'll go back and look at it now. Thanks for the idea!
Greg
When I bought my new 5.5uni, I also bought a set of hull covers, which are suitable for trailering. They were expensive, but have preserved my 10-year old boat extremely well, after many seasons of trailering, and several off-seasons in full blaring Texas sun.
Salty Dog Marine sells them (sorry, Rick).
Being a woman, I'm very ambivalent about boat covers.
Sounds like a good idea to cover your boat for trailering, but then all the road crud gets all over the cover instead of the boat. And then how do you wash the boat cover? It certainly is not going to fit into my washing machine. And that crud on it is probably not going to come off even in a commercial machine if I take it to a laundromat.
And if you keep your cover on your boat under trees, where we are, the cover is going to get covered with tree droppings and mildew.
Again, how are you going to wash that cover?
Just seems to me (again, as the woman who is going to have to figure out how to wash the cover) that it is much easier to wash the crud off the boat than to wash the cover. (Unless you don't care whether you have a really ugly, dirty, greasy, oily cover on your boat as long as the boat itself is pristine.
In other words, a boat cover is just one more thing to wash. 
Personally, I like the earlier idea of just slathering or spraying the boat with something that will keep the road stuff from sticking, so it's easy to wash at the other end of your trip.
I would never travel a boat with a cover on - A few grains of sand inside will act as cutting paste over a trip and WILL wear the finish on the boat. Don't do it.
I'm really getting personally interested in this now. We often trailer our boats behind a rear-diesel motorhome that gets our hulls all covered with black stuff from the fumes.
Will spraying the hulls with Sailcote make it possible to easily wash the black stuff off? And what does "easily wash off" mean? Just rinsing with a hose, or doing some scrubbing? Or putting the boat in the water and just sponging it off? Or what?
I have/had a travel cover for every boat I have owned. Yes sand is an issue. I have a spray bottle that I used to wash the sand off. I travel quite a bit, and I use a cover, it's a good thing.
Dave
Will spraying the hulls with Sailcote make it possible to easily wash the black stuff off? And what does "easily wash off" mean? Just rinsing with a hose, or doing some scrubbing? Or putting the boat in the water and just sponging it off? Or what?
I've had stories told of people using a flexable (flameproof) connector and then running exaust pipe(s) down the length of the trailer when towing with Diesel motorhomes to get around this problem.
Hey, Scooby, that's way too complicated and labor-intensive for us. I'm just wondering if I could spray the hulls with olive oil PAM. 
Or you can always rub the entire boat with some vaseline, if it stops paint, it will stop dirt and grime.
If I don't clean the vaseline off after the trip, is it legal to race with vaseline on your hulls? 
As a one time thing you could spray it with mould release, would do nothing for the rocks that get kicked up but it washes of with water and the wax job underneath would be in great shape. I have seen soft pillow like covers (custom I think). you have to have a cover that will not rub or flap in the wind, but will stop a rock, and is soft on the inside. sounds like a job for the off season and someone that can sew.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but we just put on liquid dish soap (no water) and let it dry on the hull(s). Then, when we arrived at the site, we washed the boat (or just dropped it in the water). The grime (even behind an F-250 diesel back in the day when you could follow the smoke trail to find 'em) washed right off.
Oh yeah, that works great with camping cookware when you're using a wood stove (on the exterior only). Keeps them from getting black.
If you are just going to drop the boat in the water rather than wash it, I would humbly suggest NOT soaping up the deck (makes for some tricky sailing when a soaped up deck gets wet!)