[Rhodes22-list] I Hate My Trailer

[William P. Barry, III]

If your trailer has any similarity to ours, you may have the same problem as
we do. What tends to happen when we load the boat on the trailer, is that
the Bow eye of the boat, always falls below the bow stop leaving about 4-5
inches of slack in the winch strap. Then, when pulling forward the slack
comes out and leaves the boat further back on the trailer. The way we found
to get rid of this slack is to try to get the bow stop on the trailer, BELOW
the bow eye on the boat so the slack in the strap doesn't become existant.
In order to do this, the launch ramp does have to be on the steeper side.
Hope this gives an idea of whats going wrong. -Will Barry


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Alm" <salm at mn.rr.com>
To: "Rhodes" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 3:58 AM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] I Hate My Trailer


> Hi.  Mary Ann and I just got back from a four day trip with Fandango.  We
> went up north to Leech Lake in north central MN.  The sailing and living
> aboard were great (I'd love to tell you more about it sometime) but after
> putting the boat in and out several times in several locations with
varying
> degrees of steepness at the ramps, I've concluded that something is
> definitely wrong here.
>
> No matter what, I just can't get the boat far enough forward on the
trailer.
> The result is not enough tongue weight.  I had to take the motor off and
> lash it on the trailer tongue, put the rudder up in the V berth, along
with
> anything else that has any weight to it.  I used my bathroom scale to try
to
> find out how heavy the tongue really is:  the scale only goes up to 300
lbs.
> and I pegged the thing before the tongue even budged off the hitch--so
I'll
> bet I have at least 400 lbs, maybe more.  Still, the trailer fishtailed at
> anything over 55 mph and also lurched and tugged most of the way.  I use a
> 3/4 ton full-size cargo van with a V-8--more than enough.
>
> At one of the ramps that had a very gradual slope, I backed in so far that
> my tailpipe was almost under.  Using the tongue extension, the forward
ends
> of the bunks were just at water level and I drove the boat hard at the
> trailer, trying to get up on the damn things, but still no luck.
>
> And at the steep ramps it's even worse.  As we've discussed before, you
pull
> the boat all the way up to the bow stop, but when you pull the trailer out
> of the water, the bow rocks back away from the bow stop, and leaves the
boat
> too far back--actually NEGATIVE TONGUE WEIGHT!
>
> I really don't want to move the motor, rudder, etc. not to mention all the
> landing gymnastics every time I trailer.  Is it just me or is it a design
> flaw.  The trailer axle should be about 6-8 inches back or something.  Can
> anyone offer some insight, please?  Pretty please?
>
> Slim
>
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