trailer adjustment

The trailer that I bought along with my Sea Nymph Coho 16 is long enough for the boat, but while it fits the boat fairly well, it does not appear to be optimally adjusted (several of the boat supports on the trailer are obviously adjustable to fit individual boats).For one thing, the tongue weight is nearly nonexistent. Does anyone have a pointer to a post or some article that gives the lowdown on how to do this kind of adjustment? I don't want to use "poke and hope" for fear of messing up a situation that is currently "good enough".

Can you post some pictures?
Your going to have to get your boat and trailer weighted. Load the boat as you would have it normally on your way to go boating. You want about 10% of the total weight as the tongue weight for proper trailer handling. Your going to have to move the boat forward on the trailer to increase the tongue weight or move some weight around in the boat. Depending on where the boat is on the trailer.
Then you can adjust the bunks, rollers and bow stop.

in addition to the excellent advice posted, on some trailers you can move the axle to adjust the tongue weight

I've never done it, but I have read that you can weigh the tongue with a bathroom scale. richg99

richg99 said:

I've never done it, but I have read that you can weigh the tongue with a bathroom scale. richg99

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Yes you can you but you will still need to know the total weight of the boat and trailer in order to know what the tongue weight should be.

on a small rig like this I would just guesstimate the weight.

Its not that critical, as long as you have enough tongue weight to prevent trailer sway you will be fine, probably 100lbs would be more than enough

Take it to a truck scale one time with just the truck and next time with the boat and trailer with the load out that you would normally go with. That way you can figure out the the weights.


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What I really wanted to know was if there is a generic method to adjust small boat trailers. From the responses I conclude that there isn't - it is specific to the trailer make and model. I don't need a scale to know that with the motor in running position I could easily lift the bow with my little finger and it stayed up in the air I will see if there is an obvious fore and aft axle adjustment on the Teeny trailer. Otherwise I will look to position items in the boat to provide tongue weight. The situation did change for the better yesterday. PO had a mid-sized Mercury (35 - 40 HP) electric start remote control long shaft motor (~200 lbs) on an improvised raised transom. I have restored the original low transom and yesterday I procured a mid-1970s 25 HP two cylinder short shaft Evinrude pull start tiller steer motor that weighs <100 lbs. That in itself should help the balance somewhat (haven't installed the motor, so don't know how much). Fortunately I only tow locally at < 50 MPH so while swaying remains a concern, it is a bit less so than if I was towing long distances at high speeds.

Trailer designs vary enough to make it hard to have a generic approach across the board.
Roller trailers/bunkstyle trailers.
Supporting your hull is obviously important and some trailer set ups allow you to crank the boat up off most the trailer...not always a good thing...
Most possible adjustments are easy enough to spot.
Your bow stop might need to be a little farther ahead if hull is still supported that way , but without pictures ,hard telling. Some/many trailers allow that adjustment easy enough.