Lets be careful out there towing.

It's 7:00am, can someone cut the E off of careful? Thank you.

A woman my wife works with was lamenting the weather before the Memorial Day weekend, rain was predicted for four days. Finally on Monday it breaks up and becomes a nice day. She and her husband put their recently purchased $35,000 boat in the water.

She can't define what happened. Tail wagging the dog? She suspects something with the anti-sway bar.

The SUV looks big enough, perhaps speed?

It went off the road and rolled twice. They both exited out the rear window. Both people are beat up but more or less unharmed.

Boat and car are scrap.

Outch. They are lucky. Things could have been worse.

914Driver wrote: She can't define what happened.

This part scares the crap out of me.

I am truly glad to hear they are OK. Credit awesome structure safety - they could be dead with a wreck like that.

But man, anytime someone says something like that I just want to cut their license into a million pieces.

trailer is crap. That is a big heavy boat and those trailer tires are tiny. Look how flimsy the trailer structure is.

Just some armchair quarterbacking.

Tow vehicle tires have tall squishy sidewalls, which let the tow vehicle wiggle side to side freely.

Boat trailer has wheels probably centered on the trailer, leaving that heavy outboard motor way out back, maximizing leverage.

Pontoon Boat on a bunk trailer, load is up high, wheels are not centered but toward the rear probably 4 of them. Tongue or front post is adjustable on some of those trailers to change tongue weight. ---What went wrong, who knows. Quick lane change might do it------

Did you really say exited out the back? As in, not wearing seatbelts? People really drive modern vehicles with $1000's of dollars in safety engineering, a pile of airbags, and all of that, and then don't buckle? Really?
Edit: Reread that, exited, as in, after the accident. Not ejected during the accident. You can just ignore my rant above. I still feel strongly about seat belts.

In reply to NOHOME:

Boat trailers use the boat as part of the structure. It's common for them to look flimsy. That boat also probably weighs less than you think. Full of fuel it probably weighs less than 2500 pounds.

As far as what happened, if the driver doesn't know, we probably never will.

Edit: Glad everyone came out OK.

No, they released seat belts and climbed out the rear.

I would assume the Stealership would set up the boat on the trailer in such a way that tongue weight is correct.

Dan

914Driver wrote: I would assume the Stealership would set up the boat on the trailer in such a way that tongue weight is correct. Dan

You'd hope, but I've seen some insane things roll of dealer lots

914Driver wrote: I would assume the Stealership would set up the boat on the trailer in such a way that tongue weight is correct.

That can be a problem. If you set it up for the ~10% tongue weight, you've got the axle centered roughly under the boat, so there is a tremendous lever arm for the heavy motor.

Set it up to minimize the lever arm on the motor, and you get a lot of tongue weight.

Boats are long and tail heavy. Makes trailering them inherently difficult and touchy. Far more so than a car carrier or utility trailer.

On the bright side, the hitch and tongue did their jobs...

In reply to foxtrapper:

I hate to disagree, but a properly set up boat tows no different than any other trailer.

I've got two boats on trailers and put thousands of miles on both of them. In a lot of cases, they actually tow better because the weight of the engine move the axles back making them less likely to sway. My 3500 pound 20 foot boat tows better than my 3100 pound 20 foot enclosed trailer.

I would guess the tail wagged the dog a bit too much. A Durango is a decent sized tow vehicle, but the boat may have been a bit too long and high for it. Having towed a good bit with a Dakota which is similar, they tow pretty good but any quick actions, good wind or passing trucks can push them around. I don't think that they needed a big 1 ton Diesel pickup, but a full-size SUV or 1/2 ton pickup may have been a better choice.

I'm going to call the massive outboard the culprit here. That is a LOT of weight way out back considering the length of the pontoon boat. That would exaggerate a small sway pretty quickly and turn it into a real issue fast!

Relatively short wheelbase "truck" pulling a long trailer. With the wheels set far back on the trailer to get the proper weight on the hitch you create a situation where a small amount of tail wag turns in to a very large amount of movement at the hitch. It would also happen very quickly and violently. My bet is that a quick turn or a little tail wag went bad quick. The woman is probably being honest when she sais she has no idea what happened. It bet it was very quick and without much of any warning.

I am glad they both got out of that alive and only beaten up. That could have ended in quite a tragedy. I am going to go with the tail wagging the dog here. Combine that with inexperience towing and you had a jacknife waiting to happen.

The first thing most people do when all goes wrong is mash the brakes.. when the trailer is steering, all the momentium it had in the sway suddenly moves forward and to the side it is swinging, this will whip the trailer and tow vehicle around faster than a 911 turbo can go through a hedge backwards. If people knew how to tow, they would know to slowly accelerate and feel for any "wagging" and how to slowly deaccelerate to stop it.

Rather than join the speculation pool I'm going to say that there is not enough info to speculate properly. Could have been a malfunction, could have been bad setup, could have been an interesting text message that started the whole mess.

I do notice that the SUV is in surprisingly good shape - I am guessing it was a slow roll. When those things go over they usually bend everything all to hell.

I was impressed as well with how well the SUV held up. Anyone tell what type it is?

dean1484 wrote: I was impressed as well with how well the SUV held up. Anyone tell what type it is?

Judging from the wheels, I'm going to say Durango. Thought it was a liberty, until I looked a little closer.

A Durango is just a gussied up Dakota, IMHO not enough tow vehicle for the size of that boat.

According to Wikipedia it weighs a light weight 4500lbs

Add in an inexperienced driver and one little thing along the way to start the waggle and disaster was almost guaranteed

This is why I refuse to tow with a short wheelbase SUV like that. Durango is not long enough to properly control a long trailer with a boat. Sure, there's enough brakes, there's enough power. But there's not enough suspension and wheelbase to control the motions.

I know I know, our european friends will come in here telling us how they towed 10k lbs on a 40' trailer with their yugo blah blah blah.... but for the majority of people out there towing in the US, they need a proper vehicle with enough wheelbase/suspension to control the load because they're not a great driver to start with.

I too do not think the Durango was up to the task. Another potential factor could be wind.

4500 pounds is too light to two a pontoon boat? Those boats are not heavy, I doubt they weigh 2000 pounds fully loaded with engine and people. they are basially two aluminum tubes with a deck between them

As is the case in most crashes (accidents?) inattention is the culprit and incorrect response when something happens.