The gods of the weather favored our noble pursuit. Although the forecast was for a blustery, rainy or worse, morning, we got a sunny but chill Minnesota morning for our pickup of Persistence at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, where the little sloop had been stored indoors all winter long in the Horse Barn. Tires were up. The backup camera on the Subaru Crosstrek worked great -- and then came the problem: the safety chains were not long enough. Gah! After all the calculating, the estimating and the intuitive guesses, the safety chain wouldn't hook up. I shoulda known: I had figured out that the electrical connection wasn't long enough so I got an "extender" that extended the wire from the SUV to the trailer. But I just did not check the chains. The problem is that the Subie has a different height clearance and a different length on the Class II tow bar. Facing the problem, we opted for what seemed our only solution: we punted. That is to say, we did hook up the emergency brake chain and affixed our safety chains to that. It was not an elegant or particularly good solution, but we got Persistence home. No problems with the new tow rig except we made the chains too short. Next step: get a length of chain to extend the chains. Figuring out how to cut a chain is the next step. Maybe some kind reader will bake me a cake with a file inside. A really good file.
BREE'S BLOG: In The Wake of the Fitzgerald