Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

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phlogiston

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Aug 31, 2009
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When not in use, our boat is stored in a boat house that is directly accessible from the beach. I am looking for a solution that would allow me to eliminate the need to hook up a vehicle to the boat trailer to pull it out of the water.

Here is what we currently do to get the boat into the boat house for storage. We hook up a the trailer to a vehicle, load the boat onto the trailer, pull the trailer up the beach to get as close to the boat house as possible, disconnect the vehicle from the trailer, hook up the winch cable to the trailer, and then slowly winch the boat into the boat house guiding it with the tongue jack. I have attached a couple of pictures to illustrate the process.

We have been using this method to get the boat and trailer into the boat house for years, but it is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. One reason is that the tongue jack is not really intended for this kind of use. Even though the distance is relatively short and we lower the jack as much as possible and use boards as a track for the jack, we still place a lot of strain on the jack. Another reason is that I don't necessarily want to take a vehicle to the lake that is capable of pulling a boat. We never take the boat on the trailer anywhere, except for servicing.

The beach is too rocky and the grade too steep for a hand dolly. I was thinking that there must be some kind of wheel assembly that you bolt on to the trailer tongue to use in place of a tongue jack. However, in contrast to a tongue jack, the wheel assembly would be designed to handle the strain of pulling the trailer (ie, have a couple of relatively large wheels, etc.)

I have scoured the Internet and can't find the solution I am looking for (perhaps I am using the wrong search terms or that hand/motorized dolly solutions are far too common). I am sure that others must want to do something similar. I don't want rails, which would work in my case but are ugly and interfere with the beach. I just want to be able to use a cable winch to haul the trailer and the boat into the boat house using some kind of sturdy cart/dolly with relatively large wheels attached to the trailer tongue.

Does anyone know of a product that is manufactured for this purpose? Or, does anyone have any recommendations for designing/fabricrating such a cart/dolly solution that can attach to a trailer tongue?

Thanks,

Martin

PS. I should add that I would not necessarily use our 12V DC winch for the initial pulling of the boat from the water. Instead, I would add a length of cable attached to a heavy duty hand-operated tirfor (which can pull an amazing amount of weight and could easily handle the extra resistance created by the rocky beach). I have used a tirfor to pull the much heavier dock up on the beach for the winter.
 

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DuckHunterJon

DuckHunterJon

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Since you didn't include a target price, I'll suggest an ATV to pull it in to the boat house! :)

Looking at how you are doing it, I haven't seen anything premade, but don't let that stop you. I would think some kind of dolly with large pneumatic tires (think, lawn tractor tires) that had a ball mount on the top. If it were me (aka, constant tinkerer) I'd find a way to drive the wheels so it's self powered and you wouldn't have to mess with the winch and cable. Good luck and post pics if you come up with something.
 
oldjeep

oldjeep

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May 17, 2010
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6,455
Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

One of these?
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...s&cm_ite=194686?ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=194686

194686_lg.jpg
 
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tmcalavy

Rear Admiral
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Messages
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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Some folks secure a mid-sized, used riding lawnmower and fit it with a hitch so they can move their boat and other things freely around their property without messing with a larger tow vehicle.
 
Silvertip

Silvertip

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

A mid size lawn tractor will not have the traction to get the boat out of the water which is the main issue here (at least in my view). Since the winch is already in place all you need is a rubber tired caster wheel that fastens to the tongue. Any welding shop in town can fashion a bracket for you. Here is a the type of caster wheel I'm thinking about.

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200329841_200329841

If you wanted to get a bit more sophisticated, buy an 8 inch boat trailer wheel (no tire) and have your local fabricator weld a stub spindle and hub to a bracket that fastens to the tongue. Mount the wheel on the hub. Using the boards you have, fasten a 2x4 on edge, to each board -- essentially forming a railroad track. Set the wheel on the track and winch the boat up. Won't even need to steer.
 
lonemust

lonemust

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Combine Oldjeep's and Silvertip's ideas together and add a loop at tongue hight to hook the winch. It can stay in place and allow you to turn it if necessary. It should allow you to get over the rocky terrain sense the tires would be pneumatic.
 
DuckHunterJon

DuckHunterJon

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

OK, that just sux - since I replied earlier, I've been doodling on some scap paper to come up with something. Now I find out it's already been done with this power caster? Oh well, no quick million for me!

I like the rail and steel wheel idea - takes the guess work out of trying to steer it.
 
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tmcalavy

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

A rail, steel wheel, a few acres and a mule...naw, aliens are cheaper.
 
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phlogiston

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Aug 31, 2009
Messages
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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Wow, there are some excellent ideas here. Thanks for all the feedback. Today, I talked to the owner of the local propeller shop who was taking a few minor nicks out of the high performance prop we use on the boat. He suggested rigging up something using a trailer rim with an oversized tire that would fit on to tongue of the trailer and swing out of the way like a normal tongue jack does. Although he claimed to be brainstorming, he said he was pretty sure he could fabricate something like this. We didn't get any further than this general conversation.

For an inexpensive and fast solution, I do like the idea of a heavy duty caster. I have seen some that are rated for 450 lbs (the tongue weight is under 200 lbs, but there may be a lot of lateral stresses). Whether this would work as a fast and inexpensive solution will depend on the plate dimensions at the top of the caster--the tongue width is 3 inches, so the bolt holes on the plate would need to be spaced at least 3 inches and a bit apart. I imagine that I could simply bolt the caster onto the tongue using appropriate hardware (5/8" bolts, etc) if the plate dimensions were sufficient.

I like the powered options, too. However, in the late season, the lake has receded quite a bit, often to the point where the staging area is not only very rocky but very soft as well (lake bottom silt, clay, etc). I have seen powerful 4 wheel drive vehicles struggle quite a bit trying to get the boat up to more solid ground. A tirfor or winch works better in this situation--there is no need to achieve purchase on soft, muddy rock strewn ground.
 
bruceb58

bruceb58

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

109jb said:
I wouldn't think that would be able to pull a boat out of the water.
Click to expand...
You are right! It wouldn't. I didn't read very carefully.
 
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reelfishin

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Mar 19, 2007
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3,050
Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

If your happy using the winch idea, then why not just bury a length of C channel from the garage to the water? You would have a guide for the tongue wheel, it wouldn't have to be taken up and put away each time and the lawn mower could pass over it, and it would last nearly forever. Depending on what you want to spend, you could use aluminum as well but steel would last for many years too. I've had a chunk of unpainted steel C channel as a step into my garage for 30 years now that shows little sign of rust or wear.
Most steel comes in 21' lengths, so you wouldn't have too many seams, which could be welded or just set in place with a close fit. I'd probably weld the seams just to keep it all aligned over time.
 
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phlogiston

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Just wanted to post a follow up on the solution I finally implemented for the issue I raised in this thread. Perhaps someone else needs a similar solution and can learn from my experience and improve on the design I implemented--I don't think I am done tinkering. (Thanks everyone for the great suggestions!)

Since one of my goals was to keep the cost as low as possible, I wanted a solution that would require little custom fabrication and could be achieved with off-the-shelf parts. The idea suggested in this thread of using a strong caster assembly achieved this goal. I got an 8" kingpinless caster and mounted two foam-filled wheels on the outside of the caster using a long bolt. The caster itself is rated for over a 1000 lbs and each of the wheels is rated for 350 lbs each. The placement of the holes on the mounting plate of the caster perfectly match the width of the tongue on the boat trailer. I chose foam-filled wheels because they provide the performance of pneumatic wheels with the reliability of solid wheels.

I thought about using larger caster and wheels, but I couldn't find a caster that had mounting plate that was the right size (the pre-drilled holes in the plate would not work with the tongue).

I couldn't implement the solution without some fabrication. The first issue I encountered was finding square U-bolts that were the right size to mount the wheel assembly on the tongue of the boat trailer. In the end, I went to an automotive spring shop and had them make the U-bolts to the proper dimensions from threaded 3/8" class 5 steel stock (took the shop about 5 minutes to make the bolts). The second issue that I encountered was that the mounting plate on the tongue jack interfered with the 360 degree rotation of the wheels when the wheels were mounted on the tongue. To solve this issue, I had a half-inch plate steel plate fabricated to use as a spacer between caster mounting plate and the tongue. (Total cost of all fabrication was about $25.00.)

I put the boat in the water the other day, and the wheels performed extremely well. I did not need to hitch a vehicle to the trailer at all. However, my 10-year old son and I had to do a bit of pushing once the rear wheels of the trailer got into the water. There is a considerable amount of loose gravel on the shoreline (see attached pictures) and the custom wheel assembly did not acheive the floatation on this gravel that I had hoped--the wheels tended to gouge the gravel rather than rotate freely on top of it. It wasn't a huge problem and pushing the trailer through the gravel did not take a large effort, although we did have to scoop some gravel out of the way by hand. But, I am thinking that if I can find a longer bolt, I might mount an additional wheel to each side of the assembly to get more surface area. However, because there isn't a lot of room immediately under the tongue for the wheels to rotate freely, if I added extra wheels, I would also need to find a way to raise the height of the wheel assembly a few inches to allow the caster to turn freely.

I have posted some pictures of the solution.

Martin
 

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GreatPyr

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Re: Wheel assembly for trailer tongue to pull boat?

Maybe you should pour a little strip of concrete to run the wheel on at the waterline to keep it from sinking into the gravel.
 
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