bobby b.

If they have the part they will fix it while you wait if you tell them you are on vacation - they do a great job - you can bring just the motor or the boat - suggest you call first - Urich in Branson West may be able to fix it quickly as well.

Alex - I would like to learn more about your setup. wattage of solar panels? size of inverter? number and voltage of batteries? who put it in? does all your slips have boats using on board battery chargers? Thanks Bobby

Good point but my situation is such that I general only have an hour or two to fish but can do that very often even daily if I want thus I like the boat dock deal - the down side is that I can't drive the boat to the upper end which at times is the better fishing, but I do have a small tin boat that I can go up into the rivers if I can find the time. I've also dealt with the thief situation and hauling tackle with a self designed and built alarm system, but now (or in ten years) must deal with this stupid new power requirement. The other positive of the boat dock deal is that I had access everyday during the the recent floods when most ramps were closed. PS I do have a lakefront home and the high cost of the solar will be shared 16 ways but IT'S STILL STUPID REQUIREMENT AND REMEMBER " YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID". Bobby

Got an estimate from a solar powered boat dock company yesterday - $15,000 but no guarantee regarding the ability to keep allot of trolling motor batteries charged up. Also need to add the cost of the required removal of all power poles and related equipment and restoration of COE property, so I'm estimating this in excess of $20,000 - ridiculous!.

Here is another stupid issue with this from the Corp. we just got our dock permit renewed but to do so we had to take off two 50 lb each hanging swings because of a new COE policy because of the weight can cause structural issues. How much weight do you think those solar panels and batteries will be compared to those two swingsets?

With graphs?

We have a very small solar panel with batteries to operate an electric switch on our gate lock and during some cloudy days in the winter the switch would not operate due to discharged batteries - we had to add more batteries. I think we will be very unhappy with the cost and operation of this - but hey maybe they will rethink this before the 10 years are up. (the COE think - what am I thinking!!!)

I'm told it's not about the green agenda but rather electrical safety - but 120 vac is the same wherever it comes. If it is the green agenda driving this that's really stupid because these private docks don't use any power compared to the other users of the world. Besides " the Donald" has shown his true colors regarding the environment. I'm betting he doesn't know about this. Maybe I should write to him.

Also will be a problem in the winter with a few days in a row of heavy cloud cover - my neighbor has a roof solar system that costs $30,000 and on average he gets on 20% output in the winter. Our little subdivision has a 16 slip dock with pretty heavy usage at times. We are estimating $10,000 in order to assure to run all the boat lifts and have enough batteries to make it thru the cloudy periods and the nights.

Thanks all I wonder which politician or government employee owns a solar power company in the area?

My neighbor saw a piece on the news last night that the Corp is going to require private boat docks to remove AC power from their docks including the power poles etc. and replace with solar and batteries. Questions - 1) What do you know about this? 2) Does anyone on this forum have solar on the dock now and if so how well does it work and how big of a battery system would be needed for a 20 slip dock? Thanks Bobby

the super secret points in the pics?

OK guys thanks for the input but I want to clarify one thing. Wrench, First I believe in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and as I said the bearing housing does not get hot after use so could I assume all is well - THAT SAID I DON'T WANT TO BREAK DOWN THIS WINTER SO DO YOU THINK I SHOULD REPACK THE BEARING AND PUT IN NEW SEALS? PS - The trailer in question was bought used and probably never worked on - I put the bearing buddies on when I got it about 10 years ago. - also I'm pretty lazy regarding these kinda of things.

Two of my small boat trailers (16 ft john boat and duck hunting layout boat) have wheel bearings with bearing buddies. My big boat has a oil/lub filled reservoir that apparent never or rarely needs service. My question is about the two smaller trailers. Years ago before the bearing buddies (yea, I'm that old), I would pack the bearings every few years, put in new seals, etc. but have not done that on these trailers in 10 plus years and have had no bearing issues but always felt the bearing housing for heat after driving some distance. So the question - Do you ever inspect and repack bearings with those having the bearing buddies? I'm going to do some traveling for duck hunting this fall and a bearing failure would be a BIG problem where I 'm going. Thanks Bobby

Got out for 2 hours after the rain this morning. Found fish in 15 fow on chuck rock point. Caught a dozen with two keepers (KY and SM). I knew a neighbor was fishing in the area so called him and he showed up and caught 8. I used drop shot with night crawlers and he used drop shot with a purple flake short worm. It was nice and cool until the following happened - A pontoon with 3 people were fishing a couple hundred yards away and apparently saw me catching so they decided to join me and I mean join me - about 10 ft away. They apologized indicating the the boat driver was a novice so I advised him to turn the steering wheel to the left and head out into open water, but it didn't. About that time my neighbor who was now about 50 yards away yelled up to me that it was a bit better there, so the pontoon zoomed up there to bother him. You can make this stuff up. Bobby