1st long distance tow

[Crewdog]

It was a fabulous day for the first long distance tow for Blue Merle. Sunny skies and just warm enough to need the a/c.

Dominic at Wefings assisted with the hard brake maneuver to seat the bow against the rollers; turns out we had to unplug the trailer brakes and it worked like a champ.

Being just a little paranoid, i opted to use a heavy duty cargo strap over the gunwales, hooked onto the trailer frame and using faux sheepskin seatbelt pads (from amazon) to protect gelcoat.

The diesel f250 performed wonderfully; getting 12 mpg for the trip using tow/haul mode and sticking to the speed limit. One neat thing was that when in cruise control in tow/haul, truck would auto downshift to maintain set speed when going down big hill.

I think i will need to get the 50 gal aftermarket fuel tank though; the stock 27 gal goes pretty quick.

I did notice the trailer seemed to fishtail noticeably over 65 mph, so i just backed it down. Anyone else have fishtailing issues?

I did have to do one authoritative braking in Dothan, and noticed some freah water coming out of the stbd vent; anyone see this on the road while trailering?

By the time i hit the Atlanta beltway for rush hour, i was feeling pretty good and we're almost ready to put in at Thunderbolt, GA saturday to take my bride to Charleston for her birthday.

Bill

 

[sleepyboat]

Bill,

A trailer that fishtails is usually a good indication of not enough tongue weight, and you have more weight to the rear of your axels. You could move some of the weight that is in the boat forward or move the stand with the winch forward a bit. I believe that 10% of the trailer weight should be on the ball. Also have your black water tank emptied before travel.
The water you saw coming out the starboard side was probably coming from your bilge pump when water came forward upon braking.

Happy trailering,
John on Sallison

 

[mspaugy]

Don't most of you turn off your battery switches before trailering your yachts?

 

[Favunclerich]

The bilge pumps are not wired through the battery switches and will operate so long as there is voltage in the batteries.

 

[knotflying]

Turning the batteries off will not turn the bilge pumps off they are wired before the battery switches so that they have power all the time. This is a safety precaution to pump out water accumulation even if the batteries are off. However you should remove the bilge plug when the boat is out of the water because when it is sitting there on the trailer the angle is different and the sensor keeps detecting water and the pump will run continuously. The water coming out could have been some residual water left in the lines and when you stopped the inertia pushed it out.
Back to the sway question, yes, too much weight on the rear. The previous post was spot on, reduce the rear weight with less fuel or holding tank fluids or move your winch block forward. !0% weight on the tongue is the rule of thumb.

 

[Crewdog]

Thanks for the tips on the sway.

We might only have 2 or 3 gallons in the holding tank, and the diesel tank might have 60 gallons in it. The fresh water tank probably about 27 gal. And maybe a couple hundred pounds of misc gear and supplies.

Fwiw, the tires were inflated to 75 psi cold on the Float-on 1231-abb trailer.

I'll take the rig to a Cat scales 1st chance and check the tongue weight, as well as overall weight of boat/trailer.

Bill

 

[knotflying]

Well, keep in mind that the fuel tank is centrally located so less fuel will have less of an impact than less holding tank fluids. Just to make sure, what you want to do is set up the boat and trailer as it would most likely be when trailering it. Then the most accurate way would be to put boat disconnected from truck on the scale. Then calculate 10% of that total weight. Then place the trailer so that only the tongue is on one scale as the axels are on the other. If you have a tongue stand that would be the best and safest way to do it. If no stand you can always make up a wooded tripod set up and then slowly lower the tongue on it by cranking the trailer foot up.