Trailer Adjustments to Reduce Overall Length

[MisChief15]

My recently purchased 1998 OUTRAGE 17 boat when on its trailer barely fits in my driveway, as can be seen in Figures 1 and 2 below.


Fig. 1

I need to reduce the overall length of the boat and trailer.

Q1: if I modified the trailer to have a folding tongue, what would be the drawback to this modification?

Q2: should I move the boat to sit more forward on the trailer?

I know that moving the boat to sit more forward on the trailer will increase the tongue weight.

Give me advice on these two options.


BACKSTORY

NEW BOAT
I just drove to the Santa Barbara area from the San Jose area and bought a 1998 OUTRAGE 17. The hull is in excellent to like-new condition. The single axle trail is in great shape, but running lights were out. We had to quickly put new trailer lamps on before I towed the boat to my home.

DETAILS ABOUT THE SELLER
The seller had owned the boat since 2009. He is a principal at a middle school, and he was very nice and pleasant to deal with. The seller said the last time he used the boat was in July 2023. He said tried to take out the stale fuel and put in 5-gallon of fresh fuel. He was using the boat sparingly in a lake with his family of three children and his wife, and occasionally fishing at Santa Barbara.

MORE ILLUSTRATIONS


Fig. 2


Fig. 3


Fig. 4

[jimh]

Q3: is the trailer made with aluminum or steel?

[jimh]

Q1: if I modified the trailer to have a folding tongue, what would be the drawback to this modification?

Changing the trailer to have a folding tongue will probably add more weight due to the hinge, and it will probably reduce the strength.

From what can be seen of the tongue in Figure 2, there is certainly room to shorten the tongue beam. That is probably the easiest, fastest, and perhaps best approach to reducing the overall length of the boat-trailer combination.

Generally, the trailer looks too long for the boat. As seen in Figure 5, the bow of the boat looks like it is sitting about five feet behind the hitch, or maybe even farther.

[jimh]

Q2: should I move the boat to sit more forward on the trailer?

The boat is already too far forward on the trailer. As seen in Figure 4, the trailer bunks already extend past the transom by about a foot. The bunks should not extend beyond the transom more than perhaps an inch or two.

The real problem with this set-up is the trailer is designed for a boat that is maybe five feet longer. This is clearly seen in Figure 2. The bow of the boat is sitting a very long distance from the hitch of the trailer.

There may be an advantage to the really long trailer: you will certainly be able to keep the rear wheels of your towing vehicle out of the water when launching on a ramp, even ramps that have a very shallow angle into the water.

Although the trailer appears in all four illustrations, I cannot tell how the axle is attached to the frame. If the axle is welded in place you are stuck with the axle in that location. If the axle is attached mechanically to the frame and could be moved, the tongue weight can be adjusted by the moving the axle a few inches.

I do see that the fender supports are attached by bolts passing through holes in the I-bean of the main frame of the trailer. That is a bit inconvenient because, if the axle is moved, the fender hangers will have to move, too, and that means more holes in the I-beam.

The approach used to locate the axle and fenders is fine if you already knew exactly where they needed to be.

[jimh]

Other suggestions:

As seen in Figure 1, the height of the winch drum is tending to pull the bow of the boat downward as it pulls the boat onto the trailer. The winch drum height should be raised so that the force of the winch strap is either just parallel to the trailer frame or exerts a slight upward pull. This will reduce the tension needed to be applied to pull the boat all the way forward into the bow rest.

The bow towing eye seems to be in an awkward spot on the bow stem, right below an overlapping part of the bow. If the bow eye does not come in contact with the bow-stop roller, you can add a small strap to pull the bow eye downward to the trailer frame. This will keep the bow from bouncing up while towing.

As seen Figure 4, the wiring from the trailer lamps appears to be using wire nuts. That is going to last about ten minutes after your first launch in saltwater. Also the wiring looks like it is bow-strung with some tension on it. Another problem to be corrected. I realize that was a quick-fix to get on the road, but it won't survive immersion in saltwater.

As seen in Figure 1, the winch strap appears to be slack, and the boat may be resting its weight on the bow-stop roller, which is probably under the lip of the upper bow area. Or maybe you slacked-off the tension of the winch strap when you got down towing the boat. Rigging the winch post so the winch roller gets under that lip could create a problem in launching. When the stern of the boat goes into the water and starts to generate buoyancy, the boat will begin to tilt, relative to the trailer, as the stern is rising. This may result in the bow exerting a lot of downward force on the bow-stop roller, and the hull getting stuck in that position. If the bow stop roller were raised so that it rested on the upper lip area and not just under it, then the boat would come off the trailer more easily when launching.

[jimh]

But before taking a saw to the bunks or the trailer frame, get the boat in the water and have some fun. Launch and load it a dozen times, and see how the trailer rigging works out. Maybe you love the long trailer.

ASIDE: two boats in the driveway at the curbside is going to attract attention from everyone, good and bad. Even if there are not municipal ordinances against storing your boat in your driveway (but there usually are such ordinances), and even if there are no neighborhood association rules about it (and there usually are such rules), there will likely be some unfavorable reaction from neighbors. At my place up north, where literally everyone has a boat trailer parked in their backyard in the summer, my neighbor, who is the ONLY person on the entire mile long shoreline road who does not have a boat, recently told me how much seeing my boat trailer parked in my backyard is spoiling her view of the woods and the shoreline road--not the view of the lake.

[Palomino]

The new boat is a good-looking rig.

I live in [an area specified only as "that"] area. I wonder if it is a boat I have driven past.

And yes, for anyone wondering, that is astroturf in the front yard. Welcome to California.

[Palomino]

Be careful moving the boat forward on the trailer especially if you have it loaded. I don't have any experience shifting the load for a boat on a trailer, but I do have lots of experience with how a load is loaded on a trailer, especially trailering heavy equipment.

If the trailer starts to drift at highway speeds you've got it loaded too far forward and it can be a real safety factor. At least with heavier loads, it can be catastrophic.

[MisChief15]

Thank you so much Jim and Palomino.

Below are more illustrations intended to show readers the way the axle is attached to the frame and other information about the trailer.


Fig 5. [Removed because it was a terrible illustration.]


Fig 6. Close up of wheel

Fig. 7 [Moderator's note: I removed this illustration and converted all the information to a few bytes of text, which is far more useful than a picture of text. Pictures of text cannot be searched for actual content of the information shown by the picture of text. Please do not post pictures of text.]

The trailer manufacturer's VIN sticker has this information:
Manufactured = ROCKET INTERNATIONAL INC. 12/2006
GVWR = 3500-lbs;
GAWR = 3500-lbs;
RIM = 14-inch 5-lug
TIRE = ST20570D14C;
PSI = 50;
Axle = SINGLE

In the future I may get a dual axle trailer. I think the boat is a little heavy for a single axle trailer. I wish i could convert this one to a dual. I might try to get a PACIFIC trailer with dual axles. [Moderator's note: removed link to a social media website; it is not necessary to show some other guy's boat on some other trailer that you think you might buy in the future]
.
ASIDE: [My other boat seen in the illustration above is for sale, and] I am getting some interest. I hope to clear up my front yard very soon.

[jimh]

About all I can gather from your recent post regarding the axle is that it appears to use a torsion bar spring. That method of springing the axles is nice as it eliminates the usual leaf spring that often is prone to rusting and failing.

I still have these questions:

Q2: is the trailer made of aluminum or steel?

Q3: how is the axle attached to the trailer?

[jimh]

If the trailer starts to drift at highway speeds you've got it loaded too far forward and it can be a real safety factor.

Towing a boat trailer is quite different from towing other types of loads on other types of trailers. Generally a boat on a trailer will have a rather low center of gravity, and the wind area will be much less than many other types of trailer with much higher profiles and much greater surface area for the wind to work on.

The usual advice for distribution of the weight load onto the tongue and axles for a boat trailer is to have about 5-percent to 10-percent of the total towed weight of the trailer bearing onto the hitch.

In order to determine the weight distribution, the best method is to weight the load on all the axles, which means:

--the front axle of the towing vehicle
--the rear axle of the towing vehicle
--the combined axles of the trailer

The process is to weight the towing vehicle and trailer simultaneously on three scales, recording the three measured weights. Then drop off the trailer, and return to the same scale and weight the two axle weights of the towing vehicle. This produces five measured weights. From these five measured weights all sorts of information can be derived.

For advice on how to deduce the tongue weight from the measurement process described above, see the article on that subject which illustrates the relationship between those five weights in detail in the archives of the website at the URL:

Boat Weight from Certified Scale
https://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/016667.html

and a similar discussion at

Boat Weight; Using CAT Truck Scales
https://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/001476.html

There is absolutely no point in worrying about tongue weight until you actually measure the tongue weight and the total weight of the trailer and boat as being towed. Without real weights there is no way to assess if the tongue weight is in the appropriate range other than to just make a guess at the weight of the trailer and the weight of the boat. Guess are just that--a guess. Another thread in the archives discusses methods for deducing towed weight. See

Estimating Towed Weight
https://continuouswave.com/forum/viewto ... 986#p14986

One problem for this particular boat trailer: the VIN sticker does not list the trailer's weight. Also, the dual language French-English seems to suggest it was made in Canada.

[MisChief15]

Thanks Jim,
The trailer is constructed with most aluminum, but the tongue beam, and the winch post are steel.

The axle is mounted by 2 bolts on the outside of frame on each side, so i guess the axle can be moved but new holes for the bolts will be needed.

[jimh]

The trailer weight should be moderate with the aluminum construction. If the boat is unloaded, the un-hitched trailer weight can be found by moving one scale to three different points: the front dolly wheel, and each axle wheel. Many step-on scales will go to 300-lbs, which may be enough capacity.

[MisChief15]

So far, I like the " shorten the tongue beam". I am worried that it will add more tongue weight, but like Jim said, all the 3 axle weight need to be checked first.

[Phil T]

You should NOT add a folding tongue to an I beam trailer.

If you want a shorter LOA, sell the I beam and buy a galvanized steel trailer.

My 17 Outrage I, has a LOA that is 22' from prop to coupler.

Look at the Loadrite model specs in my signature.

[jimh]

So far, I like the " shorten the tongue beam". I am worried that it will add more tongue weight, but like Jim said, all the 3 axle weight need to be checked first.

To deduce the tongue weight from axle weights, you need five measurements, not three, and you have to weight the towing vehicle twice, first with the trailer attached and then without the trailer attached.