Towing

[Chris]

What would be the distance between the hitch and the bows of the boat, allowing enough room for turning without the bows hitting the car.
Any ideas of tyre pressures for 400 X 8 with 2 Sprint15 on board.

I'm sure George might know I have seen him blasting down a motorway.

Thanks Chris
www.shanklinsailingclub.com

Ps look out Grub Guru Tim might be at the Nationals

[Charles]

Chris

My bows are about 80cm behind the tow hitch, a better measure is that the rear cross member is 4.3m from the tow hitch & the deepest part of the skeg rests about 5cm behind that.

I drive an MPV & it is impossible to turn tight enough for the bows to touch when going forward. However if your car has a tight turning circle then you'll just have to be careful. Obviously it is possible to jack knife in reverse.

I have mini wheels on my trailer which are 500x10, as smaller trailer wheels aren't really up to the job for more than 1 boat on a long M-way trip. These wheels will take upto 440kg at 4 bar. I noramlly run mine at 36psi (sorry for mixing measurements) & for this I carry 2 boats & a large box full of gear (box & gear probably weigh about 100kg). You need to check the max gross weight marking on your trailer to make sure you don't exceed it. If you are likely to you may need to upgrade your suspension units (I did). If you do this you also need to consider whether the trailer itself will take the weight of 2 boats & box if you have one, without deforming.

However, if you have a West Mersea trailer you're probably OK, as these are over engineered for trailing 15's.

If you're still unsure find out who from Shanklin has doubled up & pick their brains.

Hope this helps.

Charles
1237
Sticks & Stones
Halifax SC

[Chris]

Thanks for that Charles, checked the tyre rating today, 260 KG at max 60 PSI. Would imagine that the suspension units are a minimum of 5 CWT, I am at the moment around 110 cm from the hitch.
Might move it all forward 30 to 50 cm allowing me to move the back support forward a bit more giving a bit more room for adjustment.

Thanks for that
Chris

[Steve Willis]

If you do need to look at trailer parts and see what you might need then I can recommend AUTOW (www.autow.co.uk) who have an internet shop for just about everything to do with trailers you could ever want and a good variety to fit different makes.

If you look through their spares pages on their web site they give dimensions of bolt holes for suspension units so you can buy to match what hole arrangement you have in most cases. Units come without hubs which you buy separately from them to suit your wheels.

They sell imperial and metric hubs and shafts with different wheel/hole arrangements - just needs a bit of research on their site once you have measured up your trailer.

They do complete 500x10 wheels and tyres for approx £30 complete if you want to uprate (probably advisable for 2 up on motorway).

I have had about 4 lots of bits from them over the last 6 months (building new patrol boat trailers and repairing others) and they have all been delivered within about 48 hours of internet order. I have not been able to better their prices on the internet or elsewhere.

One thing to note is that most of their hubs come with a grease nipple and this needs a 'cutout' in the wheel - where the hole for the hub is - so check your wheels before ordering hubs otherwise filing or angle grinding is required on the wheels.

regards

Steve Willis

[Chris]

Hi Steve thanks but hopefully the only thing I will have to purchace is a spare wheel as the trailer is as new never used before. Don't know if the 500 X 10's will fit straight on to the 400 X 8 hubs.

Regards
Chris

[George Stephen]

Chris,

When you move the boat(s) forward on the trailer you will increase the nose weight. You should check your car handbook for the recommended range for trailer nose weight. I’ve used a household bathroom scales to check the nose weight (approximately) on my trailer plus one cat in forward and back positions..

When I towed with Gordon’s cat and mine on my trailer, we had to move the cats right BACK on the trailer to achieve what seemed like a sensible nose weight……. Moving them forward as far as possible would have made the nose weight far too heavy, even for my Volvo…..

I find that having the cat as far back on the trailer as possible seems to make it more stable than having it forward. This might be a peculiarity of my trailer or the car/trailer combination. In this context, when I ferried to IoW one year, there was a 5.5m limit on the aggregate trailer (inc boat but not car) length. I towed to Southampton with the cat fairly far back, then moved it forward in the Ferry Terminal Car Park to meet the 5.5m limit to avoid problems – the nose weight with one cat aboard and mounted forward is just about the maximum for the Volvo.

My trailer has means of adjusting the axle position forward and back, something I’ve never tried.

You’ve got a lot of responses about tyres. My trailer tyres are pretty low spec. So the max tyre pressure in mine is mid 30s psi. Make sure you have the right info about your tyres… Make sure that the total load (including the trailer weight itself) less the nose weight will be well under twice the weight you reckon the tyres can bear – the dynamic forces on bends are probably quite high (the way I drive….).

[Chris]

Hi George
Thanks for that will need to go back and check out all the details on the tyres.

Regards
Chris

[Charles]

Chris

You should find the 500x10's fit on the same hubs as the 400x8's, mine did.

There was some debate about nose wieght way back in 2004, do a search on this site for "trailer and weight" George & I were involved in that debate too funnily enough.

Towing 2 up to Thorpe Bay I used rolls of carpet to cusion the boats, about as wide as each hull & 6 feet long, rolled tightly & secured with insulating tape. They sit nicely between the hulls, with the top boat slightly foward & thus the carpet infront of the lower boat's beam & behind the upper boat's beam. Much better than tyres, or anything else I've tried. YOu'll be surprised how much thing compress when you tighten down the straps. Leave LOTS of time to mess about getting things just right before you set off.

Charles.

[Chris]

Hi thanks again the max hitch weight is 75 KG for my car and max towing weight is around I thing 1300 KG. I have been checking the weight for the Sprint15/Dart15 it is around 33 kg per hull, I presume thet the road base weight of 100 kg is the all up weight, what does it mean by the Trailing weight 174.5 kg

Thanks
Chris

It's getting a bit confusing now

[Steve Willis]

Chris,

You can get 10" wheels to fit most formats of bearing flanges that take 8" if they are 4 stud. But check the stud spacing before ordering wheels, most are 4" between studs but some are 88.5mm, 100mm or 115mm spacing.

If you have small mudguards close to the 8" tyres you may need to change the mudguards and need to check the clearance to the hulls. new mudguards are about £5-6 each.

Just one note about suspension units if the trailer has been out in the open even if not used. The rubber torsion unit will perish as I found out on my dart 18 trailer last year when moving my trailer, luckily in my orchard and not on the road, and the unit failed.

When I cut it open the rubber was perished. The trailer dates from about 1992 but had hardly ever been used as the previous owner and I both keep our boats mainly at our clubs.

Regards

Steve Willis

[Chris]

Thanks Steve, The trailer is only a few months Old so hopfully there will be no problem with the suspension units, but will check them out.
Have checked the Stats for the 15 and all up weight is around 100Kg what do they mean by Trailing weight 174.5 kg

Thanks Chris

[Steve Willis]

As I understand it the 'trailing weight' is the total weight of the trailer and everything on it - i.e the weight that will be pulled by the tow ball /towbar.

Steve