I stepped away for a few days. had to drive home from Pittsburgh, then spent two days on the lake. Nice little escape from life there for a minute.
Had an interesting experience on Saturday involving this VERY subject.
Loading up the boat as normal, got the family together and in the truck and headed out. Had to stop for fuel, then for food, then made it to the lake. Upon arrival at the lake I found one of the bolts completely unthreaded and dangling. I immediately wondered if I was about to eat crow on this topic, or if I had somehow not threaded that side when I got the boat out of the garage. Had I just trailered 60miles with only one bolt in the tower? had it rattled out on the trip between home and ramp? What the damn hell is going on here. If nothing else the timing was a little unnerving after last weeks discussion here.
We had a great day on the water, and the bolts never showed any sign of loosening despite some pretty rough water, and plenty of watersports. I was hyper aware of checking them at this point, and was just this side of being neurotic about it.
Off the water and headed home, I stopped twice in the 60 mile trip to check them. Tight, every time. No problem. Had I really "forgotten" to tighten a side when I was putting the tower back up in the driveway? I had no real way of knowing, and asked the wife if she remembered anything unusual. She did not, but commented that our neighbor across the street has security cameras that point at our driveway. I sent him an email late last night asking if he would check the footage for me and see what he could see. The response this morning was both a relief and a n eye opener for me.
I only installed one in the driveway! WTF was wrong with me? How did I not get that done? Best we can tell from the footage, I had either the wife or the oldest boy come ask me a question from inside the garage and distracted me from the normal routine. I clearly only put in the starboard bolt, answered whatever question was asked, then proceeded to put the cover on and never went back to the port bolt.
This immediately solidified two things for certain; the pre-launch checklist WORKS. We don't have a written list, but we both have a mental list to check, and rarely do we forget something when launching as the wife and I double check each other along the way. I'll be instituting a "pre-trailering" checklist as well between her and I for the same reasons. The second is that the structure of a the threaded connection is absolutely not a concern. A 60 mile road trip with a single bolt out produced plenty of opportunity for the last remaining bolt to fail. It did not. I have the stops removed from tower to get it lower and into the garage, so if the bolt had failed, it would have most likely busted the cover, side windows, and steering wheel as well. Disaster narrowly avoided I think.