The boat trailer engineer said that flat bottomed boats are especially vulnerable to side-slippage, unlike deeper vee hulls that are held in the deep-angled bunks built to cradle them, but that any boat can jump the trailer if it is not properly secured. That means eliminating fore and aft as well as side-to-side movement on the trailer.
Gunwale straps are the way to go when towing narrow-beamed boats that don’t sport a transom.
I knew something was amiss the moment I rounded the bend and saw an outboard motor and part of a transom protruding from the thick canopy of mangroves. The problem was, the boat was suspended a good 15 feet over the water, stuck in the canopy of trees that serve as a living barrier between the berm of The Overseas Highway and the edge of the Gulf of Mexico in the Florida Keys.
Standing on the sloping marl below the boat stood a guy literally scratching his head as the person I took to be his wife stood mouth agape and obviously awe-struck by an event I had missed witnessing by mere minutes. My wife dialed 911 on the cell phone to make sure authorities were on their way and with our own boat in tow we sped past the scene where several other vehicles had already pulled off to assist.
I didn’t need to read the article in the following day’s newspaper (where I worked) to piece together what had happened; I had been on the scene of a few similar—if none so dramatic—towing mishaps while covering boating beats for various publications.
With a boat in tow and driving too fast and too close to the vehicle ahead, the driver was forced to slam on his brakes when the driver of a vehicle ahead slowed quickly to gawk at a roadside osprey nest, answer the cell phone, react to the coffee that just spilled into his lap, or any one of a thousand reasons people offer for erratic driving.
The usual evasive action that situation elicits to avoid rear-ending the leading vehicle—slamming on the brakes and turning the wheel to the left—while towing a boat is dangerous enough. When that boat is improperly secured atop a trailer equipped with rollers to ease the launch and load process, the boat has projectile potential, as witnessed by me when I spied the mangrove speared by the sleek flats skiff.
“When towing a boat and trailer, it’s really important that the boat and trailer be secured to each other as one package,” explained Gerry Wiertsema, an engineer with Midwest Industries, Inc, manufacturers of ShoreLand’r trailers, adding: “or you risk them becoming two when you least expect it!”
That was the case with the boater in the Keys who counted on after-market loading guide-posts and polypropylene winch rope to keep his flat-bottomed boat aboard the trailer. When he was forced to make a quick stop and turn, the ill-secured boat’s momentum launched it off the trailer, over the cab of the tow vehicle and into the roadside trees.
The boat trailer engineer said that flat bottomed boats are especially vulnerable to side-slippage, unlike deeper vee hulls that are held in the deep-angled bunks built to cradle them, but that any boat can jump the trailer if it is not properly secured. That means eliminating fore and aft as well as side-to-side movement on the trailer.
Wiertsema explained that the trailer’s bow stop, the roller or vee-shaped piece of hard rubber mounted on the winch post, must be positioned above the boat’s bow eye when it is loaded on the trailer so that the winch strap passes under the bow stop. With the boat’s bow held snug against the stop with a tight strap running beneath it and held with the winch brake, the strap can help keep the boat from jumping for-ward and over the winch—as was the case with the flats boat—during a panic stop or rear-end collision.
He also recommended using a bow eye safety chain, standard issue on all ShoreLand’r trailers, that connects the bow eye to the winch post or main frame of the trailer as a back-up to the winch and strap system.
Snugging-up the winch strap below the bow stop, engaging the anti-reverse lock on the winch and attaching the bow safety chain are important safe-towing tasks that must not be overlooked. The post-boating season is a good time of year to check to make sure that straps and snaps and chains are up to the job, and to replace them if needed.
To keep the boat from moving from side to side on the trailer, Wiertsema said that both over-the-gunwale straps and transom straps are effective, but that loading guides should never take the place of straps for securing the aft-end of the boat to the trailer.
The downside to gunwale straps is that they can mar the boat’s finish, and the sheer length of the straps, leading from one side of the trailer frame across the beam of the boat, to the other, can make them tougher to snug-up and keep tight.
Transom straps can secure a boat to a trailer better that gunwale straps as there is less webbing to stretch, which can require re-tightening en-route. When towing a boat through locations where wind gusts can come into play, some trailer-boaters employ both types of straps to keep their craft securely on the trailer.
Transom straps, which attach to transom eyes, are shorter and therefore easier to tighten and less likely to stretch than their longer counterparts. Because they are often located closer together on the transom and to their securing points on the trailer frame, their “footprint” isn’t as wide as that of the round-the-gunwale straps and may not be as effective at snubbing side-to-side movement, especially with flatter-bottomed boats. If that’s a concern and the location of your outboard or outdrive permits it, you can cross the transom straps, securing the strap from the port transom eye to the starboard anchor point on the trailer, and vice-versa, to get a better angle to arrest side to side movement.
You can also combine transom and gunwale straps, something I employ on extended trailering trips to avoid being the featured Boating Fails of the day.
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