It came off in my hand Guv!
I was sitting thinking about the various things that had gone wrong during our 25 plus years of caravanning. The earliest incident I can recall was a hire ‘van with the old free-standing Porta Potti. We were complete novices then and with everything else to worry about we failed to close the lid properly. In case you are about to eat dinner I will spare the details. Graduating to ‘van ownership we travelled all over Europe and discovered the purpose of the breakaway cable when I failed to hitch up properly on leaving a site in the Ardeche. We reached the main road outside the site and at about 20 mph the ‘van slipped off the tow ball. Fortunately the cable did its job and the ‘van shuddered to a halt fairly quickly. True to its description the cable, of course, broke which necessitated a repair before we could get under way (I tied a knot in it). I think it was after that that we introduced a “setting off” checklist, which of course we promptly ignored until the next incident - a window left open. Since then we have had countless instances of fridge and cupboard doors mysteriously flying open for no apparent reason, spilling their contents all over the floor.
So now we are VERY experienced caravanners and bought a new Bailey Unicorn Valencia in April last year. On the way back from the dealers the jockey wheel slipped and we found ourselves towing at 60 mph on the motorway with a three wheeled ‘van. One new jockey wheel - £40 – and we hadn’t even used the ‘van. The Alko wheel lock was new to us and after setting up, levelling, steadies down, I realised that the wheel hub had to be in exactly the right position in relation to the wheel spaces. No problem because I read somewhere that the simplest way to position this is to jack up the van and rotate the wheel into position. You can read about how I bent the Bailey jack in the Discussions section. Suffice to say that you should never jack the van unhitched from the car. I read about that too – afterwards.
Well, as they say, you are never too old to learn. We are off again soon, this time to Italy. Now where did I put that checklist …..?
