I'm curious how others (those of you who race, especially) trailer their H18's. I think I have a decent overall setup, but there are a few things that could perhaps be improved.
Does anyone tie their boat forward, or use something other than hull straps?
I strap my boat down to the trailer, both to keep it from sliding back and to keep it from bouncing around, but the slight amount of sliding that does take place is scratching up my newly polished hulls where it rubs against the strap. Best I can figure is to just get a piece of foam, or a couple microfiber cloths between the straps and the hull. I'm also curious if anyone else worries about damaging the hull lip from strapping the boat down?
My rollers also seem to leave black marks on my hulls at best, or at worst, an actual flat spot on the aft stbd side. However, before this year the rollers/bunkers were not quite centered or parallel to the center of the trailer or each other, so that may have been the cause of it.
Finally, has anyone seen a hull look like this before? It's usually not visible like that (it's a trick of the lighting angle - and they aren't shadows, but there are definite high spots and low spots. You can feel it, the hull is "wavy" on the side. Seems somewhat exclusive to the stbd bow, outboard side. I have found a few "dimples" elsewhere on my hulls too. I'm not sure if it's an indication that the hull is starting to delaminate, or just a side effect of aging. If it was just visual, I'd say it was from trying to buff out the oxidation. It doesn't feel soft as far as I can tell, just kinda wavy.