My towing disaster (pictures)

[500dollar744ti]

Hmm, then what are you supposed to use to properly secure the bow? I always thought that was the securing method, along with the safety hook. Never had a boat that came with anything else. I usually use rope and the sling, but always considered them backups. My sling didn't break, but sure got fatigued in a couple spots

I use a heavy cargo ratchet strap (supposed to be 10 ton break strength) on my bow. Now I wonder if that is enough?

 

[oldjeep]

I use a heavy cargo ratchet strap (supposed to be 10 ton break strength) on my bow. Now I wonder if that is enough?

I'd first address all the rusted hardware and that the pull angle on your winch is wrong (encouraging the bow to come up)

 

[oldjeep]

My tires were several years old, but still had very good tread on them. The Explorer was used about 90% to just pull the boat and only had 95K miles. In fact in the six months of winter I probably put under 400 miles on it. The tires were BF Goodrich AT KO tires which are some if not the best tires in the all terrain market.

I know that some people like those tires, but my experience with them is that they are too hard and are some of the most worthless rain and ice tires you can buy. They work fine for snow and dirt but I always had traction issues in the rain or ice. (Had them on a Jeep Cherokee and a Jeep CJ)

 

[oldjeep]

Think of it this way, your entire winch post sheered off, which is fairly heavy gauge welded steel. That is just slightly stronger than winch strap, and it didn't have to deal with shock loading!

Well, did it actually shear a welded mount off or did it break a couple of $2 ubolts or tear the plate they were bolted to. Most non custom trailers have adjustable bow stops and the weak point is not the heavy welded steel.

 

[NYBo]

What oldjeep said about the winch and hardware.

I use a heavy cargo ratchet strap (supposed to be 10 ton break strength) on my bow. Now I wonder if that is enough?

Enough to rip the bow eye out in the event of a collision, most likely. The sad truth is that the laws of physics say there isn't much you can do to absolutely prevent the boat from launching into the tow vehicle if a collision occurs at high speed.

To the OP: Glad there were no serious injuries. Hopefully your next trailer will have good brakes. Sorry to be a jerk, but how could you not know whether your old one had brakes or not??

 

[Maclin]

Glad you are ok and no one else was involved :thumb:

If the vehicle has anti-locking brakes then the proper procedure is to stand on them and wait it out, steering lightly if needed and conditions allow. Pumping only confuses the anti-lock controller. Before anti-lock became mainstream the driver was the controller.

As for the stern straps, think of them more like holding the trailer up to the boat, that is all they are designed for. Vertical forces only. Their rating only has to cover the weight of the trailer plus a safety factor. When called upon to limit horizontal travel they would begin to force the bow up as their length runs out so to speak.

 

[500dollar744ti]

I'd first address all the rusted hardware and that the pull angle on your winch is wrong (encouraging the bow to come up)

What is the ideal setup? I'm not familiar with a proper setting for these things, it is still the way it came when I got it.

What if I ran a safety chain from the bow eye to the trailer frame behind the spare tire? Like this.

 

[Slip Away]

I seriously wonder if you had a brake failure on the tow vehicle. The weight of the boat and the hill in the picture shouldn't have caused any real dangerous situation short of having to do a panic stop, even without trailer brakes.

I AGREE 100%. That is a light boat, and plenty of tow vehicle to stop it. Something had to be in failure mode with the braking system on the truck.

 

[Starcraft5834]

glad your ok... if you get to trailering a boat again, put breaks on that baby!

 

[oldjeep]

What is the ideal setup? I'm not familiar with a proper setting for these things, it is still the way it came when I got it.

What if I ran a safety chain from the bow eye to the trailer frame behind the spare tire? Like this.

I think that your strap is fine. Your winch should be pulling straight, not uphill. I don't think I would want a chain where you suggest, too easy for it to bang up the bottom of the boat. Main thing is to make sure that your existing equipment is set up properly and in good repair.

 

[Frank Acampora]

Well, you can analyze the accident ad infinitum but ultimately as the old pilot's maxim goes: "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing." Glad no one was hurt.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Well, you can analyze the accident ad infinitum but ultimately as the old pilot's maxim goes: "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing." Glad no one was hurt.

well said.
Normally during the accident everything will be in slow motion and you will get flash backs so try not to let this ruin your enjoyment of boating. We can all talk in hind sight about how to handle a situation. I figure that a truck suffering from brake fade (build up of gas on the rotors due to heat) coming up to a corner with a trailer pushing it is a bad position to be in. I would have released the brakes and accelerated around the corner to stop the trailer pushing the rear of the truck this would have stabilized the rear of the truck then once straight I would have slammed on the brakes on the straight part. No one likes to brake in a corner with a trailer pushing and brake fade affects the rear brakes first so the trailer is fighting the front brakes which will cause you to jack knife. Got to love a stick shift when it comes to big hills they are so much easier to control.

 

[Maclin]

Good take on it Frank!

I apologize for my post, regarding it being a hash-over of the ABS. I had only read the first page of posts and did not see it had gone to 2 pages, and missed the posts where the ABS was covered very well.

I do want to comment on tires and surge brakes if only for future searchers... I had a pretty good set of tires on my truck, good tread and less than 2 years old. I had a price point when I bought them and they were ok except they would SLIDE all the way thru an intersection after a rain, seemed to be on just some surfaces. Launching and retrieving the boat was never an issue though, I did not even need 4wd to pull out. All of the ramps I use are cross-hatched for water drainage so I am sure that is a factor in good traction on wet ramps.

One time after a rain I was towing it home and slid thru an intersection. This was all flat ground. I was not going too fast for conditions, and I began braking in plenty of time, the tires just could not hold. I have a tandem axle with surge brakes on the front axle, but with with nothing to push against (i.e. my sliding truck) they did not help much. I had to go into 4wd to get going again after it stopped. I decided to get some advice from a tire shop this time. Based on their advice I went with new tires with better siping, much safer in the wet on even the troublesome surfaces I encounter.

 

[500dollar744ti]

To the OP:

Glad you are okay!

Are you sure you were not experiencing brake fade when this occurred? Brake fade is not a failure per-se, it's more of a loss of stopping power due to overheating. Once brakes get to certain temperatures the mechanical ability to create friction and stop is diluted to a level it can feel as if the brakes are doing absolutely nothing when you are stomping on them very hard.

If you have never experienced brake fade, this may be the first time you have. Downhill with a trailer for a long distance is a superb way to overheat the brakes and cause fade. It doesn't have to be a steep hill, just a prolonged use of the brakes without adequate time for them to cool in between.

When I was a bit younger I experienced brake fade in a Ford Taurus driving down hilly terrain. It was scary to be mashing on the brake pedal and have little to no stopping ability. I eventually was able to slow the car by downshifting the automatic transmission to 2nd, then 1st gear. It slowed the car enough I could control it and once the brakes cooled a little, I was able to stop.

Complete brake failure from fade is common enough that some roads have "runaway truck ramps". If you were to lose your brakes from fade, these ramps offer a sand incline to pull off on and avoid disaster.

Just a thought.

 

[xadiohead]

well said.
Normally during the accident everything will be in slow motion and you will get flash backs so try not to let this ruin your enjoyment of boating. We can all talk in hind sight about how to handle a situation. I figure that a truck suffering from brake fade (build up of gas on the rotors due to heat) coming up to a corner with a trailer pushing it is a bad position to be in. I would have released the brakes and accelerated around the corner to stop the trailer pushing the rear of the truck this would have stabilized the rear of the truck then once straight I would have slammed on the brakes on the straight part. No one likes to brake in a corner with a trailer pushing and brake fade affects the rear brakes first so the trailer is fighting the front brakes which will cause you to jack knife. Got to love a stick shift when it comes to big hills they are so much easier to control.

I don't remember 100% of the incident, but I am pretty sure I released the brakes to make it around the first curve. I just remember then moving faster and faster. I was doing my best (other than the apparent mistake of tapping on the brakes) to make the final turn you see in the pictures. On the final turn i went through part of the grass on the right side of the road and then had no control and got shot directly into the trees on the other side of the road. I think I was somewhat cautious of trying to turn too hard as I didn't want to roll vehicle and slide into the trees. Probably unlikely situation though. Granted everything happened in about 6 seconds. I'm pretty sure some type of brake failure took place on the vehicle, but it is a lesson learned to make sure I have working trailer brakes with proper tie downs.

And yes I will definitely be towing a boat in the near future (probably early next summer by the time I get a new). I will lose out on a month or so of boating this summer, but I got 12 boat trips in this summer with 25 days on the water at 8 different lakes. It just ended with a bang

 

[xadiohead]

To the OP:
Are you sure you were not experiencing brake fade when this occurred? Brake fade is not a failure per-se, it's more of a loss of stopping power due to overheating. Once brakes get to certain temperatures the mechanical ability to create friction and stop is diluted to a level it can feel as if the brakes are doing absolutely nothing when you are stomping on them very hard.

If you have never experienced brake fade, this may be the first time you have. Downhill with a trailer for a long distance is a superb way to overheat the brakes and cause fade. It doesn't have to be a steep hill, just a prolonged use of the brakes without adequate time for them to cool in between.

I really don't think that was the situation as I was less than 3 miles in to my 5 hour drive. The first mile was kinda flat, next mile was going up the hill and the last miles was going down (approximates). Can't imagine brake fatiguing taking place that quickly. The car hadn't been driven in about 5 days prior to this other than loading the boat that morning at the boat ramp with no brake issues.

 

[rbh]

WOW, glad your OK.
Trailer brakes? where there any? They would have helped possibly prevented this accident.
You truck maybe can stop this boat in a straight line on dry roads but add slippery roads, truck/trailer out of alignment by a couple of degrees and the weight of the boat/trailer will kick that rear end out and jackknife you into the weeds faster than you can say WHAT THE!

 

[xadiohead]

Boat insurance just called and they are sending an adjuster out in the next day or so. I basically need $6750 in damages to have it declared a total loss. Surely I have well more than than between the fiberglass damage and lower unit?! I can't imagine the lower unit not being damaged from the impact but I don't know how the adjuster will declare that since they can't drive the boat. Unfortunately I can't be present since I am a few hours away.

 

[JaCrispy]

What is the ideal setup? I'm not familiar with a proper setting for these things, it is still the way it came when I got it.

What if I ran a safety chain from the bow eye to the trailer frame behind the spare tire? Like this.

The winch cable should be horizontal when attached to the bow. Your setup is the total opposite mine was when I first got my boat. My winch was all the way at the bottom of the post, pulling the bow down. When I let tension off the winch there was a loud BANG which was the bow freeing itself from the trailer. Not to mention, I had to adjust all the rollers on the trailer too.

 

[edthearcher]

so glad no one was hurt bad, just looking at the pictures is scary. i think some one was looking out for you, also hope you had good coverage, you may never figure out what you did wrong or even if you did no wrong. good luck