Trailer Discussions

[Mike Goodwin]

You will note that he is in Oklahoma , not much tide range there .
I have seen a new , 1998 , Ford F-250 4wd , pulled backward when trying to ramp launch a 6000lb ( combined trailer and boat ) load on a steep, wet ramp . It stopped when there was about 2.5 feet of water in the cab .
The draft of the Pearson will require the trailer to be near 6 feet under water before she floats .
Draw that out to keep the truck wheels out of the water and you have a tongue length on the trailer of near 25' ( unless of course you can roll it down at low tide , un-hitch , move vehicle beyond tide line and wait for boat to float off )
Not many places in the US where that can happen .
You are lucky in Maine to do this , but luck has it's downside , your summer is only a week long .;>)

[c_amos]

A friend drove down from NC this week, towing the trailer for his Flicka. We spent the better part of the day yesterday trying many various methods not involving a helicopter to get 'Faith' out of the water and onto his trailer.

There is a really nice ramp where I keep my boat, used to be a seaplane ramp... goes WAY out into the water so there was no fear of driving off the end.

The Flicka draws 3'3" so the trailer was pretty close to set up (just extended the pads up a bit).

The trailer has an extend able tongue (8' or so), and the keel bed it pretty low. Even so, if I had backed the truck (84 F-250HD Diesel 4x4) any farther I would have had to replace the cd player in the dash!

I mounted a bow eye on Faith to be able to attach an anchor snubber to. This allows us to anchor with a very small swing circle (I think I posted it in another thread). It was a good place to attach the wench to. We pulled, and pulled, and wenched and backed in farther...

After 2 hours we had the first 3" of the keel (below the cut away) on the trailer. I think that both of us pretty much knew that things were not going to work out but since he had driven hundreds of miles to do this we kept trying things....

About the only thing that we did not try was to release the trailer and let it down the ramp on a chain. If we had it either would have worked or gotten hopelessly stuck part way up.

Maybe it would have worked with a steeper ramp, or a silly toungue extension (like 12-14')

Just a bit of added intel (or lack of) for the knowledge base.

You will note that he is in Oklahoma , not much tide range there .
I have seen a new , 1998 , Ford F-250 4wd , pulled backward when trying to ramp launch a 6000lb ( combined trailer and boat ) load on a steep, wet ramp . It stopped when there was about 2.5 feet of water in the cab .
The draft of the Pearson will require the trailer to be near 6 feet under water before she floats .
Draw that out to keep the truck wheels out of the water and you have a tongue length on the trailer of near 25' ( unless of course you can roll it down at low tide , un-hitch , move vehicle beyond tide line and wait for boat to float off )
Not many places in the US where that can happen .
You are lucky in Maine to do this , but luck has it's downside , your summer is only a week long .;>)