countryboy26047
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- May 25, 2012
- Messages
- 303
Well, it's been a little while since I've posted here... been extremely busy with work and vacations... Anyhow, Tuesday before last (two days before we was leaving for vacation) my wife and I along with some friends took the boat out to cruise the river for the day/evening. Everything went great, had a great time and the boat ran flawless.. It was around 10:30pm when I finally decided to call it quits.
So, I pull the boat up to the courtesy dock, tie off, and run up to get the truck (the wife wasn't comfortable backing in as the lights along the ramp were not lit for whatever reason). So anyhow, get the trailer down in fine, and myself and my friend grab the bow rope to float the boat onto the trailer as my wife and her friend waited by the truck. Well, we started having a TON of trouble trying to get the boat lined up just right as the water levels were a bit lower than usual (have been low all year, but were even lower this evening) so I released the tilt-lock pin, thinking if I tilt the trailer and just line up the skeg with the rear roller, I can just winch her up and be done. We managed to get the boat straight, and cranked up enough to where the trailer tilted back down like it should........or so I thought....
As I'm cranking the winch to finish pulling the boat up to the bow roller, I notice it was harder than usual to crank up, so I ask my wife to grab the spotlight so I can look over the whole thing to see if something was caught... Well, it only took me a few seconds to realize what happened, or rather what I had done..... When the trailer tilted back down, it didn't line up squarely with the tongue, one of the corners of the tilt-lock bracket had rested down onto the tongue, and when I continued cranking, instead of pulling the boat forward, it actually pushed that bracket down into the tongue, and unbelievably was enough to cause me to buckle the tongue down right where the latch is :facepalm: ....
Considering it was so late, I decided to just leave the boat/trailer in the parking lot for the night. The next day, I (probably a stupid idea, but it worked) had a buddy meet me at the parking lot. I used a jack to bend the tongue back as best I could, then used two 6' long 4x4 posts, one on top and one on bottom, and put multiple straps around it to give a little extra support to the tongue where it bent. I then had my buddy follow me as I towed the boat home at about 5-10mph the whole way... Thank God it is only about 3 miles, but with a ridiculously steep, 3/4 mile hill to go up. It all worked out and I got the boat home, and bear in mind, if we weren't leaving for vacation, I would have unloaded the boat and left it tied off to my brothers dock for a couple days while I brought just the trailer home to fix.
So,tomorrow, I'm off to buy a new 8' piece of 3x3x1/4" square tubing to replace the entire tongue section. uggghhh.... it's always something around here...
So, I pull the boat up to the courtesy dock, tie off, and run up to get the truck (the wife wasn't comfortable backing in as the lights along the ramp were not lit for whatever reason). So anyhow, get the trailer down in fine, and myself and my friend grab the bow rope to float the boat onto the trailer as my wife and her friend waited by the truck. Well, we started having a TON of trouble trying to get the boat lined up just right as the water levels were a bit lower than usual (have been low all year, but were even lower this evening) so I released the tilt-lock pin, thinking if I tilt the trailer and just line up the skeg with the rear roller, I can just winch her up and be done. We managed to get the boat straight, and cranked up enough to where the trailer tilted back down like it should........or so I thought....
As I'm cranking the winch to finish pulling the boat up to the bow roller, I notice it was harder than usual to crank up, so I ask my wife to grab the spotlight so I can look over the whole thing to see if something was caught... Well, it only took me a few seconds to realize what happened, or rather what I had done..... When the trailer tilted back down, it didn't line up squarely with the tongue, one of the corners of the tilt-lock bracket had rested down onto the tongue, and when I continued cranking, instead of pulling the boat forward, it actually pushed that bracket down into the tongue, and unbelievably was enough to cause me to buckle the tongue down right where the latch is :facepalm: ....
Considering it was so late, I decided to just leave the boat/trailer in the parking lot for the night. The next day, I (probably a stupid idea, but it worked) had a buddy meet me at the parking lot. I used a jack to bend the tongue back as best I could, then used two 6' long 4x4 posts, one on top and one on bottom, and put multiple straps around it to give a little extra support to the tongue where it bent. I then had my buddy follow me as I towed the boat home at about 5-10mph the whole way... Thank God it is only about 3 miles, but with a ridiculously steep, 3/4 mile hill to go up. It all worked out and I got the boat home, and bear in mind, if we weren't leaving for vacation, I would have unloaded the boat and left it tied off to my brothers dock for a couple days while I brought just the trailer home to fix.
So,tomorrow, I'm off to buy a new 8' piece of 3x3x1/4" square tubing to replace the entire tongue section. uggghhh.... it's always something around here...
