Towing a Small Boat with a Small Car

[CarinaPDX]

Yes, boat ramps can provide no end of amusement - as long as it is not your rig.

My favorite is watching folks who think it is clever to back down the ramp with the hook off the bow eye. The idea is to back down to the water, then hit the brakes, allowing momentum to pull the boat off the trailer. But in the process of backing down something happens - someone walks across the ramp, dog or child runs across - and the brakes get hit early, launching the boat onto the dry ramp. Pretty funny. A close second is floating a boat onto the trailer and not hooking up the hook to the bow eye - halfway up the ramp the trailer pulls out from under the boat.

Another favorite is watching someone back down too far, where at low water the rear wheels fall off the end of the ramp. With rear wheel drive it is pretty easy to lose the car to rolling backwards - the spinning wheels have no effect. Not as extreme but more common is backing the trailer wheels off the end of the ramp, launching the boat but making recovery difficult.

And let's not forget the fireworks show: towing a boat with mast up into a power line over the parking area. It makes perfect little round holes in the aluminum mast, and the molten aluminum droplets vaporize the deck gelcoat where they land, leaving the bare glass fibers. (don't ask)

But don't let this put you off - just get a good instructor.

Greg

[tbodine88]

Originally Posted by Sfkjeld

Either that or use the trailer ratchet to pull the boat up onto the trailer?

The more I think about about it, the more daunted I have become.

I built a tongue extender and used it when the lake got too low. and the ramp was a shallow gravel road but usually I don't need it since I seldom get the wheels of my truck wet on steep ramps.

Here's my extender:
Tom Bodine's trailer extension pictures

[Boulter]

Hi:

I don't have much experience trailer sailing. I however had my tailpipe either submerged, or very close to submerged at one launch site. So a tongue extender would have been handy. This was while launching/retrieving a 350 pound dinghy. To get the boat to float, the car was well into the lake.

I think how things go is very site dependent. What one wants is the car on a gentle slope, and the boat over a steeper slope. I think my sites are a uniform gentle slope, so the car gets wet.

I am now intending to trailer sail a 1200 pound boat, so whatever fun and games I had before will be magnified.

Boulter

[Boulter]

Originally Posted by tbodine88

Here's my extender:
Tom Bodine's trailer extension pictures

How long is your extender? I couldn't find the dimension, but maybe I missed it.

Boulter

[Boulter]

Hi Tom:

Originally Posted by Boulter

How long is your extender? I couldn't find the dimension, but maybe I missed it.

Boulter

OK, found it when I blew up the diagrams.

I thought it odd to mount a ball to the extender and use the trailer coupling as one of the the attachment points , but now that I studied the design further, your approach has an interesting feature: it will work with any trailer tongue (of the same width) without modification to the trailer. As I want one extender to work with two trailers I own, this is doubly advantageous.

Pretty good chance I am going to steal your design pretty much verbatim. Thanks for posting it.

Regards,

Boulter

[tbodine88]

Originally Posted by Boulter

How long is your extender? I couldn't find the dimension, but maybe I missed it.

Boulter

Six feet:

[hpaabor]

I have a heavier trailer sailor. I have an old beater SUV that can pull it but I prefer to use a rental pick up truck to do bigger trips. It was tricky finding a company that would let you tow but I eventually found that Enterprise commercial division would allow it. Less concern about finishing off the old beater.

[Hasbeen]

I used to tow my Formula 2 Brabham Cosworth in an enclosed trailer all up weight 1500 Lbs., behind a 1965 Hillman Minx with just 50 BHP. The Minx was 350 Lbs. lighter than an S2000.


Because it had very short overhang at the back it actually handled it better than a V8 Chrysler with a long overhang


I own an S2000, & fitted a tow bar basically to protect the thing from park by touch drivers, but have towed a horse float, with just one horse a couple of times, all up weight a bit under a ton, with out a problem.


However the high revving nature of the S2000 means you will have to be careful of the clutch on take off. You could easily overheat it with too many revvs & slipping it for too long.


If you go ahead, do some experimenting with the weight the rig puts on the tow ball. This is important for good towing with a light tow car. I would expect you would want about 100 Lbs., but it might be more. Please post a photo of the rig, if you go ahead, I'd like to see it.

[thinwater]

I used to tow a beach cat. A little lighter, but not much.


I barely got the trailer tires wet, let alone the lights. I wanted to keep the bearings dry. The trick was that I didn't need to float the boat onto the trailer. I would just get the bows on the rollers, attached the winch cable, and winch the boat up onto the trailer. Then it was easy to drive off, since was not on the slippery part of the ramp.


My F-24, on the other hand, weighs over a ton with the trailer, and must be floated on, so 4WD is nice.

[grecko]

Had a Ford Focus and I pulled a 14' aluminum boat with ease. I just had a little problem launching and retrieving the boat until I put better toyo tires on my car.

I suggest that you choose your ramp carefully. It's hard to get traction on a wet ramp.