When locked down in Cape Town South Africa we had the spare time to start putting together some videos that we wanted to share with our family and friends.
Cruising the world and life onboard, is pretty difficult to describe to people verbally. Making videos about this lifestyle help them understand why we love it. This was the beginning of our sailing channel. The early footage was never intended to entertain, or enlighten, so the early vids are a bit of a patchwork.
I hope that our videos inspire other dreamers to reach out, focus and obtain your dreams.
Hopefully some inspiration to "Quit Job and Go Sailing".
Life is not supposed to be about just getting by. I find it ridiculous to spend your life paying off a mortgage just so that at the end of it, you have somewhere to live. You’ve only got one shot at it, as far as I can tell…. so make it special. \u2028Dream big. Live in the “now”. Make every moment count…. towards your dreams.
Funny reading the comments and your Experience. I have just had my Test 2 months ago and had a some what similar experience. Our Tester came from the UK as well, and the difference from the Trainer to the Examiner was different in the way the Tester wanted and expected !!. 4 of us Failed and have since complained to RYA about a number of things on the Day that we were deemed good by the Trainer but totally different from the Tester. TBH, I was only going for my RYA Ocean for the sake of just having it..I have no desire to make a living-Charter, Work for someone, so its put me off.... Also, weve just sailed from Australia to Fiji to Bora Bora then back to Vanuatu....😀
Loaded Dually life. Weight sneaks up quick. Tool box full and cab full plus the 5th wheel hitch 10k is easy to get to. Then add an aux tank of fuel it's easy to overload a truck. A SRW truck would not even be rated to tow his setup.
@@SailingLifeonJupiter Mine is SRW.A friends 24 Denali dually weighs about the same as mine.Is yours bullet proof as armored? lol Heck mine is 8800 with 70 gallon aux tank in bed.
Ya, sometimes we wish we had something more compact. But for full time living we do like the comforts. There’s plenty of places we can pull this thing. Cheers
I bet that you were a finger painter when you were a baby and liked making a mess because your art work isn't the best. Now your going to need to get a cat to get rid of the rodents. I think if I traveled America, I'd for sure do it in a much smaller trailer or mini RV. What you've got is a monster rig that can't go everywhere. You've got a condo cat on wheels.
See if you can buy Coach bolts so you have a dome head finish on the outside of the Van and the lock nuts and washers are on the inside of the Van , i am saying this because the coach bolt has a SQ fitting section just under the dome so do not oversize the outside of the Van panel so it will lock into the panel. You can paint the head white.
@@SailingLifeonJupiter All you will see is the Dome head on The outside of the Van and the fix is done, it's better to have stronger repair than band-aid fix . You could all so put a cover over the repaired bolt area full length.
I would be getting in touch with the manufacturer with all the problems you had with that 5th wheel. Knowing that there were screws missing from that area tells me they might have skimped in other areas as well
Recreational Vehicles are designed for ... RECREATION, not full-time living. Everything has a designed lifetime usage. Cars are the best example of this. We realize that 300,000 - 500,000 miles is max for a gas-powered engine. If you drive 1,000 miles a week, it'll last you many years. If you drive 1,000 miles a day, it won't last as long. The same with RVs. They're designed and built for x days of occupancy and driven x miles. If you drive it to a single campground and leave it there, the miles stay low and it'll last longer. If you go to the campground every weekend and live in your regular house throughout the week, it'll last longer. If you only go there once a month for a week, it'll last longer. If you live in it 24/7 and drive it from sea to shining sea in less than a year, it's NOT going to last very long.
all the problem of RVS come from weight.even if the frame is reinforced,its load capacity is limited.just like jupiter,remove unnecessary equipment and keep the weight for basic living equipment priority, battery,air conditioner,water,generator🙂
Ya, we gotta lose some weight. Although this is supposed to be designed to carry a vehicle in the back! Ain’t no way you could do that and stay within weight limits. Cheers
not an expert, but bolts imo would be far better. The other thing I would consider is some sort of bulkhead structure so there is less twisting of the box.
I don't buy Chinese powertools...my dewalt 18 volt has been rock solid for 20 years...many tell me milwaukee is better....I could drill this whole project on 3 of my 20 year old batterys...again the newer 20 volts are even better... camper and RVs have always suffered build quality issues....but that said even heavy duty we'll built semi trailers are prone to cracked weld broken bolts and things falling apart....the road is unforgiving.....
Here is an idea. In addition to adding more lag bolts, I think you might need to stiffen the walls, perhaps by adding vertical metal struts at each corner and halfway along each side. Otherwise I think the walls will still move even if they are more securely fixed to the frame. You could then connect the corners across the roof with more struts. I'm no expert. Just a thought. Might increase the weight too much.
I did a lot of research and spoke with various RV owners on forums before I decided to buy a five year old Class "A" gas motorhome, instead of 5th wheel. I towed a small Honda Jazz behind it, four wheels down. I could set the RV up anywhere, and tour around in the small car, which was easy to park anywhere. I was going to tow a Jeep Wrangler, but my Filipina wife couldn't drive a manual shifter. The RV only had 20k miles on it, and the previous owner looked after it really well. I upgraded the TVs and added solar, and spent nearly two years touring North America in it. Class As are constructed far better than trailers because the chassis is heavy duty truck based. Had no flex in it at all, or very little, and it held together really well. Had the whole thing gone over by a mechanic before I bought it, who also checked the chassis and the hydraulics. The Gen set was built in, which isn't the case with most trailers. I'd heard horror stories about chassis flex in trailers and how difficult it was to park the huge truck in town when going touring or sight seeing. The RV used a lot of fuel, but not much more than a big truck towing a fifth wheel, and driving around in the little car saved a lot of gas money and parking troubles.
Ah filipina wives! I wanted an ol class A, but Princess fell in love with the apparent luxury of the 5ver. Since I made her live on a boat for 4 years I let her decide… been an adventure! Hehe cheers
Hi you guys. Sorry to hear about frame flex. You are lucky to be so skilled at doing your own repairs. I considered buying a smaller RV, maybe a class C, but when I read how flimsy most RVs are these days, I decided not to buy one. The advice was to buy a very old solid frame one and fix it up your self.
Consider installing cameras inside the RV while driving. Not only can they help you monitor blind spots or weak areas, but they also give you the chance to capture any unexpected or exciting moments to share later.
good idea find a real rough winding dirt road, Jamie jump in rv and Princes can just pour the beans to the pick me up, minimum 120 kph, with cameras set up so we can see Jamie bouncing around the rv, would make for good content dont you think ha ha ha
Shoulda. They would sit just under the slide, and I reckon wouldn’t be that noticeable. Especially painted white. At least future buyers could tell that it is stronger than factory. Cheers
No regulations regarding RV’s. Nothing will change until people quit purchasing them. Most are over priced junk for sure. Sorry for your issues. Thanks for sharing.
The idea that all the fasteners holding an RV together have to be invisible is a major contributor to these problems. Just having the tip of the lag screw gripping wood is a dumb idea. If you drill all the way through the wall to the outside then you can use a bolt with a nut and washers instead of a lag screw. Yes, you will be able to see the head of the bolt and the washer on the outside of the wall, and the bolt threaded end and nut will be bulkier to hide under the carpet. Use nylock nuts like on the planes you fly so that the nut won't unscrew itself if the aluminum tube with the wood inside crushes slightly and reduces the pressure on the nut. The invisible fasteners look like they are not even there and have holding power to match. The wall panels really should be bonded to the frame rails with something like 3M Corp 5200 adhesive with the bolts there to hold things together until the adhesive cures and as backup in case the adhesive fails somewhere down the road. The bolts would have no load on them as the adhesive would do the real work. A possible down side to repairs like these is that once you secure the wall to the frame you might just move the failure point to some other part of the structure because the excessive frame flex is the real problem and hasn't been cured.
I would sell your trailer and get a different trailer that is stronger, shorter in length and built better before this one falls apart. Replace your roof with a flat roof membrane called TPO.
@@SailingLifeonJupiter The TPO that I've been using on certain sections of my roof and deck are TPO. I love the product and the thickness is greater than a 1/16th of an inch but more like an 1/8th of an inch thick. The stuff that they used on your roof doesn't sound like it would be TPO but it could be a much cheaper version of it. You did say that it looks more like a cloth material. I got mine from a roofing company and it's supposed to last 100 years plus. I believe that it will last like they say and it's exposed to the sun light and the UV rays everyday. They use it all the time on high rise buildings. It's actually the go to roofing material that high rise buildings use if they want to have the best roof. There is also PVC and EPDM. Your roof might be TPO but it's not the TPO that I used on my rood. The stuff that I have is much thicker and I ordered it from a roofing supplier. It's close to an eighth of an inch thick. You need to glue it down and also use a TPO coated metal drip edge that you heat weld the two peaces together. There are plenty of RU-vid videos about it.
My frame actually started cracking. The warranty would do nothing. I ended up taking it an independent rv repair shop that had an inhouse welder and we plated most of the frame on atleast one side (on both sides in high stress areas) with 3/8s plate and a ton more gussets in every direction possible. Man what a difference. The trailer pulls so much better now and 0 flex. One of the most vulnerable places was not even something i thought of. The center of the trailer where the springs mount. If this spot is weak, the suspension will flex and cause the rv to wonder, whichs add extra strain to the hitch. We double played this area, and ran 2 2x3x3/8s channel from side to side attached to the bottom of the rails in front of and behind the springs. I did all this stuff 10 years ago and no problems since. It was expensive but worth it. My toyhauler is a triple axle gearbox about 16k empty, 25k fully loaded.
We are booked in at an independent repair shop (next year!) for a major frame examination and beef up. Estimate $10k. Let’s see if I have spare $$$ by then. Cheers
Yeah, probably 200 lbs there. Certainly not helping the situation. But ultimately wouldn’t matter, these are bound to start breaking anyway unless we can strengthen it all up. Cheers
I've been seeing a lot of problems with all different types of RV's I would be getting in touch with the manufacturer to see what they will do about your situation
To get the rear bearing off. After you remove the front bearing put the brake drum back on followed by the wheel bearing nut. Then give the brake drum a good pull, and it will pull the rear bearing off. presto. ezpese
