Anyone here experienced trailer failure ???

I haven't yet. Well, back in the day, with a worn out, rusted out old trailer.... but anyway.... and a broken leaf spring, but kept the boat on the trailer.

I always wonder if my boat would stay on the trailer if the bow strap failed. I have a safety chain... but it's not really set up correctly. Then, I always look at the bottom of the verticle support with the roller on top (whatever you call that piece) and the couple of U-bolts at the bottom of this. Sure, they look pretty strong, but then I imagine the leverage against those bolts. I guess it's a pretty strong system, as I don't hear of any failures from those, even as often as that system is used... but....

Any of you ever had any of these things happen ? Ever lose a boat because of it ? Almost ?

How much lift does a V-hull aluminum generate traveling at 65 mph on the highway ?

Anyone ?

Peace,
Fish

I use a tie down strap across the back of the boat connecting to the trailer. Don't know if it could ever get enough updraft to lift off the trailer but it gives me peace of mind.

Fish Chris said:

How much lift does a V-hull aluminum generate traveling at 65 mph on the highway ?

Anyone ?

Peace,
Fish

Click to expand...

Chris - a tremendous amount. We had some high wind gusts this winter - enough to lift my 750 lb 16" V right off the trailer and flip it across the yard

Before:



After:

Well, at 65 mph, you have a head wind, but Esquireds boat felt a cross wind. The boat isn't going to have that much wind resistance going forward.

Now, for momentum, that is a whole different story. Of all the wrecks involving boat trailers I have seen on the highway, what happens is, upon impact of the tow vehicle with whatever it hit, the boat will jump off to one side or the other of the winch post, and then slide up into the back of the tow vehicle. Also, every one of these boats lacked transom straps. Many big boat owners don't feel they are needed, as the boat won't bounce off, but they are terribly wrong. Between the transom straps, and the winch post, the boat is usually pretty secure.

Some people have a turnbuckle attached to the winch post, instead of that safety chain, in the event that the winch fails, so the boat doesn't fall off the back. The reasoning for the turnbuckle, as opposed to the chain, is this. The turnbuckle is tight, but the chain has slack. With that slack, the boat could get moving, and then have a lot of momentum, or a buildup of kinetic energy, before pulling on that chain. With the turnbuckle, it can't get moving, and therefore cannot build up the kinetic energy to break the turnbuckle.

If you are worried about this, you could get a large turnbuckle, but attach it to the tongue instead of the winch post. I could almost guarantee that the only way for that to fail, is if it pulls the bow eye out of the hull. If that is a worry to you, paranoid is a good word to describe yourself. With all the injuries that could be obtained while boating, if you are worried about something as unlikely as loosing your bow eye, you shouldn't be boating.

Last spring my wife and I were on our way to catch some slabs and about an hour away I looked back in the rearview to see a wheel wobbling Pulled over and found that my bearings were..... gone. Come to find out, after looking at the other side, during duck season someone decided they wanted my bearing buddies worse than I did. :evil: That was a long wait on the side of the road before my brother could come bring me tools and parts for the roadside fix. After that I thought about buying a new hub and mounting it on my spare tire. Now that this thread has brought it back to my attention, I think I need to add that to the top part of my "list".

It wasn't a tinboat, but I've had a bunk break before, I ended up leaving it as it was after moving the bunk around, short ride home, though.

I also lost a wheel on one of my glass boats. Taking a curve on the way to the lake, and grind!!!!! Helluva noise, and I look over to see my wheel rolling off into the woods, the trailer was digging into the concrete via one of the bolts, ouch. I ended up calling a buddy (he lived behind me), who took the wheel off my other boat and brought it out so I could get home. Since then, I've paid more attention to the trailer, I was lucky it happened close to home, too, it could have been a couple of hours away.

I might have you all beat...
I had a 1999 triton 19tr that was less than a year old at the time. I had the trailer replaced by triton due to defective welds, they cloned my trailer coping my serial number to save me the trouble of transferring the tags.
The only problem was my new trailer had defective lugs that they recalled by serial number so I never got the notice.
I was driving down to lake Murray in S.C. on I95 during rush hour on a Friday night when lugs snapped sending my trailer tire across 4 lanes of traffic into the windshield of an on coming car. Thank good no one was in the passenger seat they would have been killed, it did total the car.
after replacing the rotor and tire and all the lugs my boat was back ready to go
Not a scratch on the boat itself

Wayne

The last 3 scenarios are probably a lot more likely than the boat coming free of the trailer. And, all but maybe the faulty lug nuts could have been avoided with regular maintenance. Goes to show that maintenance is a very important part of boating.