West Mersea launching trolleys.
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Dinghy classes
Forum Name: Dinghy development
Forum Discription: The latest moves in the dinghy market
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13476
Printed Date: 28 Jun 25 at 5:57pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: West Mersea launching trolleys.
Posted By: fleaberto
Subject: West Mersea launching trolleys.
Date Posted: 07 Dec 19 at 7:15pm
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Has anyone bought one of West Mersea's Aluminium trolleys? A bit of a silly question but do they still fit ok on road bases? I have a WM double stacker that's about 5 or 6 years old and need a trolley for my Contender. The new ally trolleys look quite different but I assume they still slot into the WM road bases ok? I have tried contacting them directly but with no response  ------------- Lightning368 'All the Gear' (409), Lightning368 'Sprite' (101), Laser (big number) 'Yellow Jack', RS Vareo (432)'The Golden Rays' |
Replies:
Posted By: Sam.Spoons
Date Posted: 07 Dec 19 at 9:11pm
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I read somewhere that the Blaze (250 in steel) trolly needs a 275 road base.
You might get a quicker response off their facebook page......... ------------- Spice 346 "Flat Broke" Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |
Posted By: giraffe
Date Posted: 07 Dec 19 at 11:23pm
| Sadly in my experience getting a West Mersea trolley to fit another West Mersea base is a bit like playing the lottery |
Posted By: zeon
Date Posted: 07 Dec 19 at 11:50pm
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. If you are buying new go to sovereign or admiral. Other wise you will have to try and find someone to modify what you have to fit . Sovereign still might be your best bet for this too. |
Posted By: davidyacht
Date Posted: 08 Dec 19 at 9:30am
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I suspect that you could give Rob at Sovereign your road base to ensure that the trolley fits. I use a Sovereign ally trolley and I would never have anything else. ------------- Happily living in the past |
Posted By: Sam.Spoons
Date Posted: 08 Dec 19 at 10:15am
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I have two road bases, my mate has one, and between us three 250 trollies, various manufacturers* but all are interchangeable. * IIRC, Bases, West Mersea, Indispension and Streamline, trollies, Streamline and 2 x WM. ------------- Spice 346 "Flat Broke" Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |
Posted By: eric_c
Date Posted: 09 Dec 19 at 5:14pm
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Sovereign are nice, but nothing else fits on my Sovereign road base, even a Trident Laser trolley is too wide. There were some rumours of fatigue failures in Ali trolleys if you do a lot of road miles? Anyone know about this? It may be old hat now?
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Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 9:06am
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Good morning, our double stack trailers will fit all 190 to 275 trolleys (this should be identified on the side of the trailer via teh label), The Contender should now be on a 275 trolley if its aluminium so will indeed fit. Generally we make aluminium trolley's 1 size bigger than the steel version as this ensures the balance point stays good and you can use it easily and safely. I am sorry you did not get a response earlier, if you can contact me via our contact page on the new Mersea trailers website and let me know where you sent the initial enquiry I will see what went wrong. If you need any further help or would like to pick up a new 275 contender trolley please let me know. https://www.merseatrailers.com/contact |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 9:16am
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If you have a ally trolley for a blaze it will need to be a 275 if you order from Mersea Trailers as this ensures the balance is correct, unfortunately this would mean that you would need a 275 trailer. 275 trailers will go down to a 250 trailer by moving teh locking pin at the front. Blaze was originally produced on a 250 steel trolley. I have had 3 Blaze's all with ally trollies which I adored and made launching and retrieving very easy, however I do sail on a inland water and only used is a couple of times on the sea which seemed to be ok, standing on the trolley to sink it, pull the boat over the top of the trolley and step off , the trolley then floats up to lock under the gunwale (do the reverse to launch)
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Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 9:25am
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We dont see any weld failures at Mersea Trailers on ally trollies apart from one that I was made aware of ineth last 24 months, but this was caused by a ratchet strap put around the handle and then connected to the trailer. Unfortunately during a journey the handle snapped at the join. The boat was on a flat bed trailer so may have been moving due to other straps to. Please remember the boat should be strapped down to the trailer and use the lock in pin at the front of the trailer along with ensuring the trolleys has locked in under the trailer tabs at the rear. If you want further towing safety advice please see the new mersea trailers website :-https://www.merseatrailers.com/towing-advice |
Posted By: Sussex Lad
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 10:18am
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While we're on the subject of trailers:- One of the issues I have with combi trailers is the balance point. Clearly the manufacturer needs to make the balance point right for towing, safety first and all that........but this quite often means the balance point when the boat is on the launching trolley being dragged around on the beach is way off, much too nose heavy. Given the age of the average sailor terribly bad ergonomics.
Seems to me that when not being towed the boat needs moving back on the launching trolley by about 9" in some cases. |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 10:39am
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Mersea trailers is based in Great Bromley near Colchester, we employ 20 people and have a large manufacturing site over 6.5 acres. We manufacture all trailers and trollies on site at the Great Bromley site which include our other brands:- www.merseatrailers.com www.bramber-trailers.com www.snipetrailers.com www.rapidetrailers.com We are always surprised at the reaction when people pick up their trailers from us as they are genuinely impressed at the size of the site, the activity going on and of course the range of trailers we produce. We welcome people at the factory and are alwasy happy to show people around, come and see us! Mersea Trailers, Geat Bromley Essex CO7 7UL https://www.google.com/maps/place/West+Mersea+Trailers/@51.8833166,1.0487005,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d90514726e70e9:0xa746aea684ef7612!8m2!3d51.8833133!4d1.0508892" rel="nofollow - https://www.google.com/maps/place/West+Mersea+Trailers/@51.8833166,1.0487005,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d90514726e70e9:0xa746aea684ef7612!8m2!3d51.8833133!4d1.0508892 |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 10:55am
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Thank you for this and this is a very key point, combi road bases are designed to have enough weight when empty to have a good amount of nose weight, we then try and have the trolley with a small amount of nose weight to compensate for the overhang at the back. This is epically hard when we have glass and epoxy boats made of the same fleet for obvious reasons. we are always keen for feedback on particular boats so that we can rectify the issues for teh future, please use our contact form below, useful information like boat, size of trolley, size of trailer, nose weight of both:- https://www.merseatrailers.com/contact There are a number of items to help with boat movement, like:- https://www.merseatrailers.com/store/Simple-jockey-wheel-for-dinghies-p156627975 https://www.merseatrailers.com/store/CLAMP-ON-JOCKEY-WHEEL-BRACKET-FOR-LTs-p156595750 https://www.merseatrailers.com/store/Jockey-Wheel-J148-p156576422 https://www.merseatrailers.com/store/CLAMP-ON-JOCKEY-WHEEL-BRACKET-FOR-Standard-Road-Base-p156627827 https://www.merseatrailers.com/store/Trolley-Coupling-Bracket-for-Launch-trolley-coupling-p156595141 |
Posted By: zeon
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 11:45am
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Thanks for correcting me about the origin of West Mersea trailers . Great to know they are still british made in this day and age . To go back to the nose weight question. I am not so bothered about the weight of the road trailer/combi ( jockey wheels solve most of the problems ) ,it’s more the nose weight of launching trolleys . So many trolleys for short boats have far to much nose weight . In my experience you get less problems when boats get to 13”/14”, I had no problems with my laser or supernova( and the aero and zero are really good too) but trying to get well balanced launching trolleys for Lightning’s ,Comets and British moths is a nightmare. We had to have ones custom made in the end for our British moths .
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 11:54am
Why post this when it is untrue and unsympathetic? In one sentence you libel West Mersea and victim-blame the OP. Good going
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Posted By: zeon
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 1:40pm
As as you can see above, i apologised for my incorrect comment about west mersea and also have removed that sentence from my original post . Also at no point did i victim blame anyone, I made a general statement about the world we live in . So you can take your sarcastic passive aggressive attitude and put it where the sun does not shine  |
Posted By: fleaberto
Date Posted: 11 Dec 19 at 8:25pm
Nice one, cheers Steve. I've just sent a message via the contact form 😁 ------------- Lightning368 'All the Gear' (409), Lightning368 'Sprite' (101), Laser (big number) 'Yellow Jack', RS Vareo (432)'The Golden Rays' |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 12 Dec 19 at 1:04pm
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I have only been with Mersea trailers since September 2020 but looking back through our records I cant find where we have built any Lightning’s ,Comets or British moths. we are always happy to work with people to get the product refined and or offer a new produce. If any of you who own one of these boats and would like to lend us the boat and current trolley for a couple of weeks we would be delighted to produce a correctly balanced one. Great to see Supernova, aero and laser 1 trollies are all good as we produce all of them.
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Posted By: zeon
Date Posted: 12 Dec 19 at 4:50pm
First of all thank you the personal message , Stephen. And great to hear that you are willing to help with any concerns that have been raised. |
Posted By: jeffers
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 7:27am
Sept 2020....futuristic..... ------------- Paul ---------------------- D-Zero GBR 74 |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 8:05am
Just hit 88mph with a West Mersea trailer behind and the flux capacitor will do the rest! ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 8:36am
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Thats very good and you will need that flux capacitor to get away, as that is slightly above the speed limit! Thank you for the correction it was September 2019 I joined Mersea Trailers. Proves I am looking forward all the time and that we have many exciting new things planned in 2020 already, keep an eye on the face book page and new website. thank you for all your support in using Mersea trailers products.
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Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 9:41am
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Hi Stephen,
What if anything are you doing about anti theft items on your trailers ? My club loses hitches and suspension units on a monthly basis. ------------- Robert |
Posted By: jeffers
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 10:08am
Can you get a tow bar for a DeLorean?...... ------------- Paul ---------------------- D-Zero GBR 74 |
Posted By: ian.r.mcdonald
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 11:29am
That would be useful, go to an Open meeting and note all of the wind shifts and tidal advantages, and then drive back to the same Open to do it again and use your "previous" knowledge |
Posted By: zeon
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 3:55pm
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Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 6:42pm
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Stephen, if you are still looking - do you do spare parts for the old Rapids multicraft trailer please? ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: Stephen Blake
Date Posted: 13 Dec 19 at 7:48pm
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Yes send info via the mersea trailers contact page:- https://www.merseatrailers.com/contact |
Posted By: ian.r.mcdonald
Date Posted: 14 Dec 19 at 12:28pm
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Well done Stephen!
Fast and useful responses and top marks for being on the forum with your own name. Turn the machine off in the evening! We can all wait till you are back at work ! |