cam 0 Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 Although I have enjoyed getting back into laser dinghies lately, as well as sailing the rave foiling trimaran for the last several years, with 3 kids decided we need a boat we can all get out on now. hence the fhe family fleet was increased by one Young 7.8m trailer sailor last week (water ballasted version). Popped up to Auckland to collect it after work on Friday and drove it back down to smelly welly on Saturday. Can report that she goes great to windward behind the old landcruiser If you need to drive from Auck to Wellington or vice versa, Saturday night is an excellent time to make the trip with few hassles, as the roads were extremely quiet (very few trucks even). Very relaxing driving at night on quiet roads compared to fighting the traffic at every small town. Also I can highly recommend the service from Ray Garrett tyres in Whangaparoa. Unlike a few other places, they had just the tyre in stock (light truck tyre) and they spent over an hour getting the old seized nuts off and replacing them (warning me the studs looked a bit dodgy) and advised I check the nuts after an hour as they didnt want to overtighten them in case they broke off, and they checked the wheel bearings both sides (and warned me they looked a bit dodgy but should be ok). and only charged me the very reasonable price for the tyre. While this was being done, I spent a bit long contemplating some rust on the trailer, started over-thinking it and imagining it failing on the Desert road in the middle of the night. Quick stop at placemakers to pick up some lengths of 2*4 in case I needed to lash a failed joint together to get to the next town. Needn't have bothered as it held together fine. Although a few pieces of the trailer decided they didnt want to come this far south. most dramatically the front mount of the right wheelguard. It said goodbye to the frame just after Levin. it flicked off the tyre, and then rotated around the single bolt holding it on the back mount, and the front half got scrunched under the back half, scraping along the road throwing up a big shower of sparks. It had my jury rigged orange trailer side lights on it, which survived. This was relocated to the side of the boat, and the tortured wheelguard chucked in the back and shortly thereafter arrived back in smelly welly at 3:30am. Link to post Share on other sites
too_tall 15 Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 It sounds like it was a good thing there were not too many police checkpoints along the way too, specially not god squad plebs. That trailer sounds like it was thoroughly road worthy Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 1, 2012 Author Share Posted May 1, 2012 Well actually it did have a recent WOF so the paperwork was legit and it proved to be ok in reality. Just me being a bit of a worrier and over-thinking the things that could have gone wrong but didnt, along with an ungalvanised trailer that needed a bit of love. Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 1, 2012 Author Share Posted May 1, 2012 and now the time has come to sell one of the family fleet.... sob. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=471465081&ed=true Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 2, 2012 Author Share Posted May 2, 2012 Hey one thing I noticed on the drive south is the trailer snaking around freaked me out a bit. I never went over 90k but even at 85 I found any sudden changes of direction would send the trailer snaking about like a deranged circus monkey. It certainly kept me awake! Gave me the shits actually. I felt like it wouldnt have taken much to lose it. I think I had plenty of weight in the vehcle, which was a loaded up landcruiser. I hope to do a fair bit of travelling with this boat and wondering if I upgrade to a double axle trailer is this likely to tow much better tracking-wise in general? slightly better, no diff? Also is it best to try and get weight OFF the ball of the trailer to make a good towing setup. It seems to have a good bit of weight (perhaps 100kg) pushing down on the ball which I thought might not help with tracking (but perhaps it does actually?). Link to post Share on other sites
Terry B 71 Posted May 2, 2012 Share Posted May 2, 2012 Aaaaah, the joys of trailer ownership! How well I (and my bank balance) remember those days................ I "upgraded" my trailer to a double axle version - brand new - for $8,500 about 4 years ago. Had to, the single axle finally collapsed (well almost) and wasn't salvageable. These days they have to be fully braked etc. It sat under a 25 foot trailer yacht, a Noeleda. So if you've got the money............... I sold the boat & trailer 2 years ago. In your situation, I'd find a well known and trusted trailer manufacturer near you. And take the whole trailer/yacht/vehicle in to them and ask for advice. Get them to check the trailer over. They'll give you great advice on towing weights, balance on tow bar etc. Then take it to another well known etc, etc trailer company and see if you get the same advice. Just for a double check. Feel free to use my "dumb blonde" method (apologies to any blondes, natural or otherwise, on this forum) - "please mister, I dohn no wadda to do, can ya help a poor boy in distress?" Everyone loves to help when asked for their incredible expertise................ Good luck! I do miss the ease of shifting the boat around though. Was great for Xmas holidays - go anywhere, sleep in the boat on the side of the road, toilet facilities and cooking gear go with you, no need to set up a tent!!! And no antifoul!! Uuummh, remind me again why I sold her and bought a keeler? Link to post Share on other sites
johnMi 2 Posted May 2, 2012 Share Posted May 2, 2012 Hi Cam There is nothing necessarily wrong with a single axled trailer, as long as the wheels and axle are of the right size for the load. I've had both, and the dual axle used to always give me a flat in the rear tyre. You wouldn't necessarily know until the tyre was ruined. A good weight on the towball usually helps towing. I suggest you look at the wheel alignment, as tyres facing inward can cause horrendous towing scares. Link to post Share on other sites
Fusion 0 Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 It also has a lot to do with balance and the amount of weight on the draw bar. The pendulum effect of the outboard hanging out the back could be the difference between stress free and stressed out while towing. Take as much weight out from behind the axle as possibly. Before it was a lock you up and through away the key offence I have a piece of paper with the "# 183kph towing a trailer" that I exchanged for a large sum of hard earned cash. Link to post Share on other sites
Fogg 427 Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 Had a few hairy moments with the snakes towing a v long trailer (had rowing 8s on it). The old adage about powering out of a snake worked but is counter-intuitive cos it leaves you thinking "how can I ever stop if I keep going faster?!" Biggest thing that stopped it was to switch on the 4 wheel drive. So if you were driving your Landcruiser in 2x4 try it in 4x4 and spot the difference. Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 3, 2012 Author Share Posted May 3, 2012 cheers for this great info guys, hadnt consider engaging 4wd, wheel alignment is an interesting one too. Will check these all out in my search for the best towing config. . In my case, when the fishtailing occurred coasting seemed to provide the most reliable recovery. Tried gently accelerating and this seemed ok altho depending on road quality a bit. Keeping the end light defintely seems a prudent approach too, in my case the outboard was in the vehicle. Actually related to that I know of a very sad case where a bloke had an outboard in the back of a station wagon, he had to do an emergency stop and the ob got flung forward and killed his little boy in the back seat. This is going back a few decades before restraining rings tended to be fitted to station wagons (when there was nothing to tie down a heavy object to if you wanted to), but is a sobering lesson to do so if you can. a risk to be aware of as stuff like this does happen. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 If your landcruiser isn't already fulltime 4wd, then engaging it is going to scrub your front tyes out and break something in the driveline Link to post Share on other sites
TimB 7 Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 A snaking trailer is almost always caused by having too much weight behind the trailer axle and not wenough in front. With a big boat I would not expect to be able to lift the drawbar by hand unless you are related to the Mitre 10 man (big is good). Rather than putting the outboard in the tow vehicle consider putting up the front of the boat on the floor. Also check there is not any thing heavy in the lockers. If that doesn't work then the axle needs to be moved back on the trailer. Not a small task but always works. not all trailer manufacturers understand this. You will notice on power boats which typically carry an outboard permantly mounted the axle is a lot futher back than it would be for a trailer sailor which would have its center of gravity near the middlle. timb Link to post Share on other sites
Fogg 427 Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 If your landcruiser isn't already fulltime 4wd, then engaging it is going to scrub your front tyes out and break something in the driveline He needs to check the manual. If it has an All Wheel Drive option with a differential in the centre drivetrain then it might be driveable on roads fine. Over the years the various 4WD transmission configurations of Toyotas have varied hugely, resulting in different do's and dont's for on-road use of the 4WD. Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 3, 2012 Author Share Posted May 3, 2012 The experience here is excellent, thanks men.... Interesting stuff wrt weight distribution. It takes most of my strength to lift the front end onto the tow ball, sigh..ok then all of my strength . I would like to think this means it is close to 200kg, but sadly probably means it is something closer to 100kg... Altho it pushes the back end down enough that my headlights on low beam blinded all the oncoming drivers, based on the number flashing their lights at me being very close to 100%. I havent engaged 4wd at anything like mway speeds before so will chk manual on this but sounds worth a try if poss. This gives me a lot of stuff to play around with. Link to post Share on other sites
Farrari 4 Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 You might want to take it to a trailer manufacturer as it sounds like you may have too much weight over the drawbar. Most drawbars are only rated to 50-80Kg or so. You may find the extra weight plus all the extra stuff in the back of the 4x4 is resulting in a weight distribution problem in the vehicle i.e. insufficient weight at the front. This could cause a nose up attitude that would be further affected by windage at higher speeds. You might want to consider moving some of the weight around but whatever you do dont put it aft of the trailer axle. In the days that we used to tow race cars around we always had to balance the car on the trailer correctly. Too much weight either way and you knew about it quite quickly. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 You might want to take it to a trailer manufacturer as it sounds like you may have too much weight over the drawbar. Most drawbars are only rated to 50-80Kg or so. You may find the extra weight plus all the extra stuff in the back of the 4x4 is resulting in a weight distribution problem in the vehicle i.e. insufficient weight at the front. This could cause a nose up attitude that would be further affected by windage at higher speeds. You might want to consider moving some of the weight around but whatever you do dont put it aft of the trailer axle. In the days that we used to tow race cars around we always had to balance the car on the trailer correctly. Too much weight either way and you knew about it quite quickly. X2 With my Farr7500 I hand about 10kg of downforce on the front. Mind you it was tandam. I had a 20l of water that I put in the forepeak if I towed with the motor on the back. Towed it about 4 times around the whole country Link to post Share on other sites
cam 0 Posted May 3, 2012 Author Share Posted May 3, 2012 that sounds a almost evenly balanced setup with a light 10kg of downward pressure curly, so with that and a tandem trailer, was fishtailing much of a problem in that config,ie reguarly occassionally, never?? Good idea balancing the OB with water ballast to keep things nice and balanced..... Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 that sounds a almost evenly balanced setup with a light 10kg of downward pressure curly, so with that and a tandem trailer, was fishtailing much of a problem in that config,ie reguarly occassionally, never?? Good idea balancing the OB with water ballast to keep things nice and balanced..... Never, send me a pm, at pk bay at the mo... Link to post Share on other sites
Adrianp 120 Posted May 4, 2012 Share Posted May 4, 2012 One other thing you might want to check - trailer flex! My Sportboat trailer flexs a bit unless you tie down the boat quite tight. It is very noticable when the front tiedown comes undone as the trailer starts to sway/bounce/wobble. Once done back up tight, its a dream to drive. For comparisions sake, its a 7m boat, about a ton including the trailer, on a single axle trailer and has about 20-40kg of downforce on the towbar depending on how we load the boat on. Tows super nice and has changed my opinion on single vs double axle trailers! Link to post Share on other sites
Megwyn 2 Posted May 4, 2012 Share Posted May 4, 2012 We had only a single axle trailer for the Elliott (7.8 - 1000kg). I have no idea how much weight was on the towbar, but Himself could lift it onto the towball, by positioning himself correctly and doing a power lift. I think it was reasonably heavy, because although only small, he is very strong (swoon). She towed like a dream. No swaying about - just following along like a well trained puppy. You knew she was on, but she didn't tug at her lead at all! Terry - its much more fun to sit on your boat out on the water than it is on the trailer and not having to do battle at the boat ramp any more is a real bonus. Tha'ts why many trailer yachties stop trailering - or so I am told. Link to post Share on other sites
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