Distance between pontoon boat and trailer.

[Silver Eagle]

What is the safe distance to have your bow on your pontoon and the rear of your truck. I have a friend of mine who when backing up his trailer, the tow hook on the front of the pontoon almost hits the side of his truck.One of these days he's going to cut it to far and hit the side of his truck.He has a seven ft center bar on the trailer.Plus a foot of reciever now. Should he move the boat back a foot or get a longer center bar put on the trailer.Pontoon boat trailers are very short in the front for some reason..If he moved the boat back a foot more of the boat would be on the boards in the front with a 10 inch over hang in the rear.

 

[dockwrecker]

Re: Distance between pontoon boat and trailer.

Check the tongue weight first. If it's 10% of the boat weight then he needs to get the tongue extended a foot or two. Just pushing it back may cause instability.

 

[Mr Crabbs]

Re: Distance between pontoon boat and trailer.

I went out and measured mine. I have 5' 1" from the receiver to the eye on the pontoon. My pontoon and trailer were purchased together and matched. The trailer has a stop block that hits the front edge of the bow and keeps me from moving forward too far.

 

[Silver Eagle]

Re: Distance between pontoon boat and trailer.

Tomorrow we are going boating, so first off we are going to weigh the tongue before we load up the boat. Then after we more the boat back a foot we will weigh it again. Yesterday we went to my farvoite boat dealer and John told them his problem. They said that the way the boat fits on the trailer he should be ok with moving it back a foot. Only because the trailer is a four wheeler.If that doesn't work then he will get a 9 ft center bar installed, it's seven ft now. In a streight line coming from the hitch there is less then three ft of open space. He's even thought about buying a longer trailer and selling the one he has now. Sun tracker has one for his boat for $2400.00 And that one has side Bunks too. His doesn't.

 

[Silver Eagle]

Re: Distance between pontoon boat and trailer.

On Saturday went to the boat to the loading docks.The first thing we did was put the scale under the jack. It went up two 360lbs then the ball pushed the scale in half .There was only one other boat there so as we backed the boat into the water we losened up the four nuts holding the bow holder in place and slide it back 10 inches. .After we went out for a while we came back loaded the boat on the trailer and left.(Yes we did tighten the four nuts up). We used my truck this time and I couldn't feel any difference in towing the boat.Backing was much easier this time.