INVESTIGATOR 563

Ahh ok, and do they swivel in and out like this?
the height/ gradient appear correct just the swivel action can screw things up a little so not sure if they are supposed to be tight or a bit loose.

Welcome Ed.

You have already done the single most important upgrade to your Investigator. Rusting of the centreboard was always an issue. Replacing it with stainless will guarantee no further problems. Well done.

You can always replace your trailer skids with a wobble wheels to ease the retrieval. If you do, I'd recommend two sets of quad rollers per side to distribute the load. I'd wait though, until you had done a few launches and retrieves, before doing mods to the trailer. The skids might prove to be sufficient.

Enjoy your boat and share your adventures.

Hi Ed. Your long bunks are a good thing as the more area the hull bares on the less point loading. The trailer looks exactly like mine but with one long shaped piece of timber between the adjustable supports. As Geoff said all the weight should be on the keel rollers, the bunks just stop the 563 from tipping side to side. Best practice is to lower them down a few inches when launching/retrieving. It does not matter if the boat tips a little either way . This means the whole hull is totally clear of the bunks when moving off the trailer and only slides really probably on one side.

After retrieval adjust the bunks up so they are JUST touching the hull and your ready to rock and roll up the highway.
A tip I’ve mentioned before on a previous post but bares repeating is to use a good ring spanner to adjust your bunk bolts. As your going to be doing it often this gives good purchase and gets them tight and won’t round them off. Shifters are an invention of the devil who it is not widely known owns a bolt factory on the side.

From what I’m understanding from your post you should adjust the camber of the bunks so it is well aligned with the hull on contact and then tighten that up well . You should then only need to use the up/down adjustment to launch/retrieve.

To all, If your bunks have that grooved plastic skid material it goes hard after a while and I found it was scratching the hull . I’ve replaced it with thick marine carpet and it’s much kinder to the surface. As the sign on the trailer sailer’s door said “OUT TO LAUNCH”

One other small point if you want to always get the boat roughly level side to side on the trailer do it once with a spirit level and them mark around the supports with a permanent marker.(see pic) Have done that but as the supporter are adjusted down a bit for cleaning so you cannot see it. Then, you just move the side not under load up to the mark, tip the boat a little on to that side then adjust the other side up. Level every time.

Good suggestion David. I could even tape a small bit of poly cutting board which would bulk it up without using a lot of tape.

I did consider that it might be antifoul but I can’t see any strong evidence that it has been in the water for a long period of time so hopefully they were sensible enough to not use anti foul lol.

Thanks Raya for the welcome! I’ve put the stainless keel in yesterday and just have to fibre glass the bolt back in which I’ll do tomorrow
I noticed that the carpet on one of the bunks was worn through so I’ve just replaced with thick marine carpet on both bunks now so it should protect the paint well. The side with the paint scrape was the one with the worn carpet too so might be related.

Cheers Ozzie for the tips about lowering the bunks, I’ll have to get a good spanner
I didn’t really think about where the weight should be but makes sense that it should be on the rollers, really helpful thank you! I’ll also be tightening up the camber a bit

So the last couple of days were spent getting the keel ready and installing + removing all rust from the trailer, welding issue areas, replacing heavily rusted brackets, painting, re-carpeting bunks and replacing all the rollers as a couple of them were cracked from rust and all of the spindles were rusted solid inside the rollers.
Here is a photo from the dark workshop this arvo.

Haha you’re right, I have put them on already, this photo just had better lighting but here is the finished trailer
(And a before photo too)

Great refurb Ed. Nice to see new owners with lots of enthusiasm and lots of new posts going up. Helps old owners like me try and get a bit of it back

The fitment of the guide rails is a good idea. I didn't have them on my trailer originally and it was always a struggle to line up the keel on the rollers when there was a tide running across the boat ramp. I eventually fitted some rollers to guide the keel which made retrieval much easier. Should have done earlier. Here is my present arrangement.