With the
long winter over (I think its over.)I’m looking forward to the dive season
opening up. The schlepping begins well before the season though. What this
schlepping you say? I looked it up in
the dive dictionary:
Schlepping (sch-lep-ing) : the
logistics of the coordination, handling,
loading , unloading and movement of copious heavy dive gear, repeatedly.
So when you
help load the tanks, gear bags and other equipment into the dive van or trailer
your helping to schlep the gear. Schlepping is an integral to diving and is actually
part of the Dive Master training. Ask
Tater as he has completed his dive master certification. We can’t dive if the gear doesn’t get there.
There’s a
lot of background to schlepping that most people never see. Start with filling
the tanks. It looks like you just hook up the tank to the fill whip and open
the valve. What you don’t see is the filler’s quick inspection to the tanks. It
is important to make sure that no damage that result in an explosive situation has
occurred since the last fill. All of our tanks get the mandatory annual inspection
every February. After the tanks are
filled, we stage the tanks for loading. Most of the summer, I load them
directly in the trailer after filling.
When we load
the van and trailer a lot of thought goes into where the weight is placed in
the vehicles. In the van we try to keep
the combined weight of passengers, gear on trailer tongue weight below the
recommended tire load rating for the tires on the van. On my list to do this
spring is to take the van and trailer to Kenosha Tire to have the tires
inspected, much like you have you regulator and gear inspected. They may
determine that new tires will be in order. The same weight issues are considered in
loading the trailer. We try to balance the heaviest weight over the axle. We also pay attention to the distribution of
weight from the front of the trailer to the rear. Too much weight towards the
front of the trailer causes excessive tongue weight thus putting excessive
weight on the rear of the van and exceeds the load rating on the rear
tires. Too much weight towards the rear
of the trailer causes the tongue to lift the back of the van and the trailer
will sway back and forth. This shifts the weight of the cargo from one trailer
tire to the next. When most of the weight is shifted to one tire it exceeds the
recommended load and the tire overheats and blows out. In addition to balancing the loads,
inspection of the van, trailer and tires is a regular ongoing activity. I even
check the temperature of the tires at every pit stop with a PYROMETER while on
the road. However, even with the
balancing of the load and constant inspecting, occasionally you can still blow
out a tire.
Last summer on our way to recover the famous
Ghost Anchor of Butternut Lake we blew a trailer tire by Appleton. (We blamed
the blow out on the Ghost Witch of Butternut Lake. Legend states that she
placed a curse on anyone attempting to get the Ghost Anchor out of the lake.
Later that day she threw a deer at the trailer. That’s another story though.) We had been diligent on balancing the load
and checking the vehicles and tires but still had a blowout. On the trip the
tire temperature’s had been running between 105 to 110 degrees. The same temps
that we ran all the way to Ohio and back a few weeks earlier. As we were weighted just less than the Ohio
trip we determined that the blown tire must have picked up a nail or other road
debris and began to lose pressure. This
made the sidewall of the tire to bulge and flex caused the tire temperature to
increase rapidly exploding the tire. The tire blew with such force that it took
the fender right off the trailer. As the driver, I was happy that the load in
the trailer was evenly balance as it made keeping control of the vehicles and
getting off the road much safer. A few years ago I anticipated (as any good
schelpper would) that this could happen thus the tool box and spare tire that I
had welded to the front of the trailer. We were back on the highway in about 20
minutes. Just before we got back on the road I checked the tire temps on the
van and trailer. It was about 20 minutes after the blow out and they were about
100 degrees. The blown out tire was still registering well over 180 degrees. I
wonder what it was when it blew.
In the next
few weeks I will be picking up the trailer from storage. It’s been in a heated
warehouse during this nasty winter. Before the season starts I hope to finally
complete the interior and install some lighting. If I don’t get the interior finished and
lights installed you can still be assured the inspections will get done and all
safety issues addressed. It’s just part
of the schlepp.
Mook
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