Monday, December 25, 2017

Investigator 563 History

This info is collected from various internet sources, such as the Investigator 563 forum, John Crawford Marine library (Brisbane, Australia) etc. If any of this is inaccurate, please post a comment or contact me.

The Designer Kevin Shepard was also a sailmaker by trade and the Investigator 563 won the Gold Design Award by the Industrial Design Council of Australia.

The boats were built in Sydney by Investigator Yachts from 1975 to 1989 with 170 built.  Hull layup was at 1 Campbell Pde, Manly Vale, Sydney on the bank of Manly creek, near Manly Beach.

Other info indicates they were built by Yacht Sales, Careening Cove, Sydney.

Sales offices were in Sydney, Newcastle, in Melbourne and Adelaide

Some of the sales were made by Investigator Yachts ; Lot 11, Maquarie rd, Cardiff, NSW, near Newcastle, NSW.

Below are some sales advertisements from sailing magazines of the era.







Investigators were also built under licence in Western Australia.






Saturday, December 23, 2017

Trailer frame rebuild Ep5

A the back of the trailer,  heavy duty keel cross beams were fitted  (Frames 5,6 and 7)  These are all the same shape and level.

Up front, Frame 3 was modeled on the previous one, which had a 3" drop in the middle. I made a V beam with 3.5" drop using lighter 4mm thick rolled galvanized channel.

Frame 3 - on it's template


Frame 4 is still under construction - (It's located where the keel forefoot begins to rise up.)

Frame 4 - early stages , on its template



Frames under construction - old frame 4 used to shape new frame 4. Galvanized frame 3 tacked on.


Frame 2 (the straight easy one near front) was re-fitted with heavy channel section used.

Draw Bar begins

Placed the long length of 3x2" RHS draw bar in position, propped up at it's end. Frame one, not yet made, take to loads of the draw bars hinge join. Thinking of moving it back about a foot which should give more overall draw bar to A frame strength and make the boat easier to tilt. The previous draw bar stuck out only 3 feet from the Apex way too short for my "tray back" ute (pickup tuck) So doubled the length to 6 feet and cut the draw bar to length.


Teria's trailer frame is progressing


Found a very good trailer selection and engineering/building website from NZ (also covers Australian codes) This is the page i first came across.

Trailer Sauce - draw bar design and function.  There is allot of other very useful information and allot of pages to read. I found the galvanizing section very informative - especially the bit about pre-drilling holes in end corners so the preparatory acid bath solution can all drain out and wont cause a molten zinc mini explosion. Wish i'd found this site before actually beginning the project, some learning (the hard way) bumps would have been avoided. There's also plans for a medium sized small runabout (or sailing dinghy) trailer (a bit lighter and simpler than Teria's)

It's the festive season over here so back into it after the New Year.