How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

[FishingBuddy]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

push it off, walk it on
always safer
jusr speaking for myself and my boat/trailer here

I also learned that guys who don't know how to drive on/off "right" are over-powering their props and causing a washout area at the bottom of the ramp. the washout area causes erosion and shorter ramp life cycle, not to mention a drop-off that can cause trailer or even vehicles to be pulled down into the water

 

[rjlipscomb]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

Drive it on, power it up to the bow stop and wife hooks it. (she keeps her hands out of the way until I tell her it's okay). Boat is on straight and centered. Simple.

My trailer winch set-up is not correct. I cannot winch the boat up all the way while the stern is still in the water. The handle hits the boat. A problem I'll correct in the off season.

 

[22E6441]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

Idle up and as soon as the boat catches the bunks I go over the bow (on purpose) holding a bow line, then grab the winch, line up the keel on the bottomw rollers and winch her up. Then I go back over the bow, tilt the motor, then back over again and drive the van out. I don't get wet unless it's a really shallow sloped ramp and I have to drive in a fair way.....then I just get a soaker in in 6" of water....no biggie.

I launch and retrieve solo.....my wife only pulls the van away after I've launch the boat. She will not drive the van with the boat on the trailer. She will also not back up the trailer with boat on or not.

 

[ckone0814]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

We always drive on. I think a lot has to do with type of trailer you have, bunks are more forgiving I think. We have bunks and we can hit them in gear at just above idle and she'll come to a stop and center on her own pretty nicely - then power on till I hit the stop, strap and chain her, and we're off. Depends on depth of water at ramp obviously.

Whatever you feel comfortable with and works. Never let the yahoos waiting pressure you into doing something unsafe or out of your comfort zone.

 

[Shadow66]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

At first I didn't even realize you could just pull your boat onto the trailer. Everyone here does it powered. But then I ran out of gas once and had to be towed back...I pulled the boat up onto the trailer. It went so smooth I never looked back. We have been taking off and putting on by manpower instead of boat power.

Less damage to ramps and no damage really possible to boat.

 

[JB25VIP]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

i always drive on, trim up about halfway and idle it on, i'm not a fan of "power loading" like some idiots that sit there and gas it full throttle to get it the other halfway up the trailer. (i guess one could make an argument that i powerload since i'm under power when i load, at idle speed however.) power loading is allowed at my ramp.

it seems that they never figure out that if they back there trailer in another 3 or 4 feet their boat wouldn't stop halfway up the bunks and have to rev the crap out of it to get it the rest of the way. (sometimes even that doesn't work so the man jumps out of his boat with it still running, jumps back in the truck and backs it in another 4 feet anyway since his power launch failed. then instead of hooking up the bow strap and winching it in, he jumps back in the boat and gasses the daylights out of it again, then hits the bow stop with a humungous THUD that was completely unneccesary.

i know some may say that they are scared of the trailer falling off the end of the ramp by backing in a little further, but where i launch the lake is up super high, and theres another 20 extra feet of ramp in the water.

hahaa reminds me of the guy i saw the other day, loading an 18 or so foot bass boat, guys wife backs trailer in, guy powers on to the trailer, hits the bow stop, then proceeds to rev it up to about half throttle under power, then signals for his wife to pull up the ramp while he's throttled up on the boat, best i could tell he was trying to keep the boat fully up to the front of the trailer while wife pulls the boat out. She gasses the truck unnecessarily and as she does the boat slips back on the trailer about 2 feet despite the guy keeping throttle pinned to avoid this, she backs up, tries it again. This happens three times total, without success. after third time, guy walks to the front of the boat, hooks up his bow strap and gets pulled up the ramp no problem. seems to me he should have just hooked the bow trap in the first place? good times at the ramp, gotta love it!

I guess i got off on a little bit of a tangent, sorry

 

[Kris_20]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

I always drive my boat onto the trailer. It never took me more then a minute to do it. However if my trailer didn`t have guides I would not drive it on. I`ve seen experienced driver drive on the trailer crooked because they did not have guides and then they were trying to push it on straight once out of the water.

 

[_chris_]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

I would never have a need to power it on because when I get my trailer in the water and my truck tires still dry I can pull the boat with one finger all the way up, it is floating the whole time and when I pul out it always sets down perfectly. I don't even need to use my winch. I am confident I could idle it onto the trailer if I needed to, like if there was no dock but every lake I go to has docks. Where I go there is usually a line so I am tied up for at least 15-20 minutes anyway so I spend that time cleaning the boat and don't feel like firing it up to move it 20 feet forward.

 

[collind]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

I drive it off at launch and drive it back on to retrieve, very easy process. For me the trick is not to put the trailer in too deep, so I drive the boat onto the bunks gently and the friction holds the boat in place until I climb over the bow to hook up the winch and winch it the rest of the way. If the trailer is in too deep, the boat sometimes won't center itself properly on the bunks and just makes the whole process a mess.

-Collin
2007 Sea Ray 185 Sport

 

[pontoonokie]

Re: How many of you drive your boat onto the trailer?

Like a lot of others.. i would call what i do a slide on / slide off.. i have a 18' toon, and i line it up on the ramp and let my wife back the last 10' i unhook bow hook and she backs taps the breaks and i slide off trailer.. loading same thing except i idle up slide on with momentum..latch hook she pulls up.. all done.. quick and easy..