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Random Quote: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Since the title of the thread is towing a boat safely AND the image of the 33 Palmetto on the guard rail is fresh on everyone's mind, I'd like to give my views on the issue of how to avoid having your boat on the guardrail. To me, the key issue is not the tow vehicle, but is the trailer's braking system. Here's why: If the trailer brakes lock up, the trailer is out of control. Since the tow vehicle is what it is pushing against, it rotates around the hitch point and the situation gets very bad very quickly.
When brakes first began to appear on boat trailers, a big boat on a trailer was 25 feet long. The typical braking system used surge brakes, because the electrics rotted apart too quickly. Now, towing 35 feet is common. Surge actuators are still used on most boat trailers. They are very simple in concept. The coupler slides on the trailer tongue and in doing so, it pushes on a brake cylinder. The harder the tow vehicle is braking, the harder the trailer brakes are applied, until the system comes into balance. If the trailer slows too quickly, the trailer brakes are released. If it pushes too hard, it locks the brakes. While the system is simple, it is also difficult to modulate. There is usually a shock absorber in the system to slow the apply and release of the brakes and to avoid trailer surge, where the trailer cycles quickly between braking too hard and releasing to much. The same actuator can be fitted to widely varying weight trailers. That might have been just fine in 1980, but I'm willing to bet that the Palmetto was on a surge brake trailer. After all, surge brakes are inexpensive and require nothing to hook the up, so they are easy to sell and work with any size tow vehicle. As such, it is no wonder that they remain the most common system on boat trailers.
Once the trailer begins to skid, the tow vehicle is at the mercy of what ever the trailer does. Here's the critical part: An "out of control" trailer doesn't care what the tow rating of the truck is. It may care about how heavy it is, but since most trucks typically have most of the weight on the front wheels and much less on the rears, it is easy for the trailer to drag the back of the truck around. As you get into the brakes, the front end comes down and partially unloads the rear end - just the opposite of what you'd like to have happen. So, if the driver is on the brakes when the trailer is attempting to pass the tow vehicle, (and who would not be?), the back of the truck has the least traction of any part of the package.
Will dual rear wheels help? If the back of the truck weighs 3000 pounds and the rear tires are inflated to 50 psi, the tires will have a contact area of about 60 square inches. 60 time 50 is 3000. As the tire pressure increases, the contact area gets smaller. If you take the tires up to 75 pounds, the tire contact patch drops to 40 square inches. So, unless the dual rear wheels are running at lower air pressure than the single rears would, their total contact area will be the same. That contact area will also be split among 4 tires rather than 2. As far as I'm concerned, dual rear wheels will add a lot more to the load carrying capacity than they will to the towing capacity. Dual rears are generally rated slightly higher in towing capacity, but I suspect that it has more to do with tongue weight and brakes than it does traction. As the tongue weight increases, so does the traction, because the contact area of the tires increases.
So, where is this going? I am convinced that electric over hydraulic brakes are so far superior to surge brakes that it is time to toss surge brakes into the same junk pile as drum brakes. Why? Because they are adjustable. You can set how much of the braking is done by the truck and how much is done by the trailer. As long as the trailer is braking harder than the truck, the truck and trailer will stop in a straight line. Let the truck braking exceed the trailer braking and the moment the trailer gets a bit out of line, it will try and pass the tow vehicle. The solution? Brakes that are adjustable.
So,now, back to the issue of tow ratings. Every manufacturer who publishes tow rating is also saying that they will honor the warranty and that the truck won't break if you stay within the tow limits. So, I believe they have a lot to do with what the truck will withstand and that the manufacturers expect the trailer to have decent brakes. I am not convinced that the Palmetto would have stayed of the guard rail if it was being towed by a 3500 or even bigger. I say if the truck is sized for the job, is the ability of the trailer brakes that are your biggest variable when someone cuts in front and jams on the brakes. You have a choice. You can be yelling "you stupid SOB" as you avoid him or you can be saying "Oh, sh*t" as your trailer locks up and comes around. On my last trip, I got fully into the anti lock brakes when some idiot stopped in front of me. The brakes were properly set and all I got was mad. I run nothing but electric over hydraulics.
Overkill for what I pull, but my vote is for Ford. Mine is an 07 F350 single rear wheel 4x4 Power Stroke Diesel. Pulls my 24' boat like it ain't there......
__________________ My boat
Clearwater 2400 Baystar
200 HP Yamaha 4 stroke
My day job
Sure: I bought a new trailer from McClain in Houston, Texas. This is the second McClain I've bought and I have yet to see any company make a better saltwater trailer. They use massive aluminum I-beams and all of the hardware is correctly sized for the task.
The trailer I bought was triple axle, rated at 15,000 pounds with electric over hydraulics, Kodiak stainless calipers and stainless discs, Tie Down torsion axles with replaceable spindles, spare tire, hub and spindle mounted on a bracket, LED lights, all stainless hardware and a 10,000 pound winch. The trailer cost $ 9,050.00 and took three weeks to build. When I got to Florida and loaded the boat on it, I had to adjust the front of the bow bunks up about 2 inches. Other than that, it fit perfectly. The tongue weight was right and the boat sat on the trailer where it belonged. With the trailer level, the temperature on the tires was dead even, so the load was spread correctly over the triples.
One of the things like about their trailers is that the I beams don't have a hard bend in them where they go from straight to angled toward the tongue. These have a long curve that about matches the curve of the rub rail. They are a nice trailer and there's something to be said for a company that will build exactly what you want and get it right.
I've driven a vehicle when the trailer blew a tire. Whipped the towing vehicle around nearly 360 degrees. Can't say whether surge brakes made it worse or not, but it was the most terrifying slow-motion 2 seconds I've encountered in a long while!
__________________ -Bill Kearney, 34' Four Winns 348 Vista
I've driven a vehicle when the trailer blew a tire. Whipped the towing vehicle around nearly 360 degrees. Can't say whether surge brakes made it worse or not, but it was the most terrifying slow-motion 2 seconds I've encountered in a long while!
Which tire did you blew? Were you on a dully? What size truck? How big was the load?
Re: Towing a boat safely - which of the big four 
