It's pushing 90 degrees, it has been one long work week, the cooler is packed, family excited, and you are backing your truck towards your boat trailer anticipating a nice calm "water detox", everything you'd dreamed of in terms of family enjoyment when you first thought about boating. But is it really that; or is it perhaps more of a dreadful memory of all the things that went wrong the on last boating adventure?
Let's be very honest here, and admit we all had some serious trepidation dealing with boats and towing in the beginning and ,I would bet, there are folks still participating for the sake of family fun; for whom the experience has never really been comfortable, much less fun.
In my experience launching, and loading your boats on public ramps, for diagnostic or work completion testing; I have seen most of the typical, shall we say, "poor decisions" made by both newbies and seasoned boaters. The things that produce stress, and negative feelings from the get go. We've all seen them, we've laughed at some, cursed at some, and if we're true boaters, we have offered to help out if possible.
Rather than listing mistakes; let's concentrate on some common sense practices that I promise will help keep the unloading and loading process smooth and quite doable.
Backing a trailer sounds easy enough, right? I have likely backed boat trailers a hundred miles by now, and can do it with any trailer, and any boat, on any ramp. Guess what, it took practice and lots of attempts to really smooth it out. As a working human, you likely don't have much time for practice, but taking an evening on a fall day (not so much vehicular traffic), and simply backing your rig into and out of a ramp several times, from different angles, and curves, can be very helpful. If I see one thing that gives the most trouble ,it would be over correction. Too much front end sweeping of the tow vehicle causes the trailer axle(s) to reverse wildly side to side. Slow down, when you see the trailer turning off course, make a small correction, so as to simply get direction back under control.
How deep in the water? It depends on the trailer, the vessel, the ramp angle, the tide, and your experience. You WILL be getting the rear wheels of your truck in the water, so get over that. You are deep enough when you can drive the vessel off or on the trailer with the boat's motor(s). Period.
I highly suggest that if you have a helper, he/she should stop the tow driver when deep enough to start the boat motor. Lower the motor (or drive) to the correct-- starting position--which, for an outboard, is full vertical position! (This is a CRITICAL function of the dreaded outboard "cold start"-and we'll talk about that soon!) Once the motor is started ; one can tilt up a bit if concerned about bottom strike, but shift the motor into and out of gear to make sure there's no stalling, and an operating temperature has been achieved.
NOW, and only now, is it really safe to back the trailer in the rest of the way so as to "drive" the boat off the trailer. It takes some practice, and common sense; but do you really want to walk all the way back from your parked truck/trailer, carrying a cooler, to find your boat tied at the ramp dock with a dead battery, or unforeseen mechanical problem? Incidentally; the practice of starting outboards at home with a water hose really doesn't indicate anything other than the motor will idle on "some" of it's cylinders. The motor running in your driveway is "unloaded"; there is no exhaust back pressure, possibly not running on all cylinders, and with modern equipment, engine computers are so smart as to be able to compensate for a dead cylinder by remapping the functioning cylinders to idle up. It is highly unlikely very many non-tech folks will even notice. "She idles fine on the hose"; in the words of my frustrated clients. Hose pipe outboard operation, in short, is a very ineffective method of evaluating the health of the motor ,and learning you have an issue AFTER you have kicked your boat off its trailer and parked your truck, will not make for many Happy Rampers waiting to use the ramp you're now obstructing.
Practice your backing skills, try and exercise patience and courtesy on public ramps. Think through the motor starting/ unloading procedure. If the sequence breaks down; take a breath, begin the engine start up from step one again, give it a fair try, but try to remember that ramp time is critical to everyone. If she won't go, pull out, get out of the traffic, look things over calmly. Have you forgotten the safety lanyard? I'm never going to admit how many times I have!
Boat safe Boat smart
Let's be very honest here, and admit we all had some serious trepidation dealing with boats and towing in the beginning and ,I would bet, there are folks still participating for the sake of family fun; for whom the experience has never really been comfortable, much less fun.
In my experience launching, and loading your boats on public ramps, for diagnostic or work completion testing; I have seen most of the typical, shall we say, "poor decisions" made by both newbies and seasoned boaters. The things that produce stress, and negative feelings from the get go. We've all seen them, we've laughed at some, cursed at some, and if we're true boaters, we have offered to help out if possible.
Rather than listing mistakes; let's concentrate on some common sense practices that I promise will help keep the unloading and loading process smooth and quite doable.
Backing a trailer sounds easy enough, right? I have likely backed boat trailers a hundred miles by now, and can do it with any trailer, and any boat, on any ramp. Guess what, it took practice and lots of attempts to really smooth it out. As a working human, you likely don't have much time for practice, but taking an evening on a fall day (not so much vehicular traffic), and simply backing your rig into and out of a ramp several times, from different angles, and curves, can be very helpful. If I see one thing that gives the most trouble ,it would be over correction. Too much front end sweeping of the tow vehicle causes the trailer axle(s) to reverse wildly side to side. Slow down, when you see the trailer turning off course, make a small correction, so as to simply get direction back under control.
How deep in the water? It depends on the trailer, the vessel, the ramp angle, the tide, and your experience. You WILL be getting the rear wheels of your truck in the water, so get over that. You are deep enough when you can drive the vessel off or on the trailer with the boat's motor(s). Period.
I highly suggest that if you have a helper, he/she should stop the tow driver when deep enough to start the boat motor. Lower the motor (or drive) to the correct-- starting position--which, for an outboard, is full vertical position! (This is a CRITICAL function of the dreaded outboard "cold start"-and we'll talk about that soon!) Once the motor is started ; one can tilt up a bit if concerned about bottom strike, but shift the motor into and out of gear to make sure there's no stalling, and an operating temperature has been achieved.
NOW, and only now, is it really safe to back the trailer in the rest of the way so as to "drive" the boat off the trailer. It takes some practice, and common sense; but do you really want to walk all the way back from your parked truck/trailer, carrying a cooler, to find your boat tied at the ramp dock with a dead battery, or unforeseen mechanical problem? Incidentally; the practice of starting outboards at home with a water hose really doesn't indicate anything other than the motor will idle on "some" of it's cylinders. The motor running in your driveway is "unloaded"; there is no exhaust back pressure, possibly not running on all cylinders, and with modern equipment, engine computers are so smart as to be able to compensate for a dead cylinder by remapping the functioning cylinders to idle up. It is highly unlikely very many non-tech folks will even notice. "She idles fine on the hose"; in the words of my frustrated clients. Hose pipe outboard operation, in short, is a very ineffective method of evaluating the health of the motor ,and learning you have an issue AFTER you have kicked your boat off its trailer and parked your truck, will not make for many Happy Rampers waiting to use the ramp you're now obstructing.
Practice your backing skills, try and exercise patience and courtesy on public ramps. Think through the motor starting/ unloading procedure. If the sequence breaks down; take a breath, begin the engine start up from step one again, give it a fair try, but try to remember that ramp time is critical to everyone. If she won't go, pull out, get out of the traffic, look things over calmly. Have you forgotten the safety lanyard? I'm never going to admit how many times I have!
Boat safe Boat smart