towing tinnie

I had a similar dilemma, slush.

Initially I had no trailer, just clamp on jockey wheels, which were fine for moving 100m or so, but not more. This was OK at a lot of places, but sometimes there is no camping close to the water. If it is not easy to use the boat, you don't use it as much.

I considered making up some sort of tow hitch for the front of the boat to use with the jockey wheels 9but did not plan on registering it), but though it would be too unstable.

Ended up getting an Almac fold up trailer. There are many available, but the Almac is Aluminium and is by far the lightest I have found. I carry it on the draw bar of my CT with the wheels in a carry basket (with fuel tank, seats, and other 'uglies') under the boat. All works great so far. The trailer has no suspension to keep weight down so it is limited to about 80KPH, but I never get anywhere near that anyway. Longest tow using the trailer so far has been about 2 KM.

I don't know that you could get what you are talking about registered. In the least, you would need two road wheels, an axle, some boat supports to keep the boat stable and a method of tying the boat down to it at the rear. At the front you would need a draw bar, hitch and a method of very securly connecting to the boat (this is probably the biggest challenge). You would also need a light board and cables. Funnily enough, that is exactly what my fold up trailer is, with probably about 6 KG of aluminium connecting it all together and a simple winch up front to make launcing and retreiving easier.

I managed to pick up my trailer (in new condition), second hand for half the new price. Don't think there is a lot of opportunity for that, but you never know.

Slush ,

I use wheels that clamp on to the gunnel and the edge at the bottom of the side of the boat . I have a tow hitch that slips over the front handle on the top of the bow and over the shackle hole at the front . An arm comes out with a small universal joint and this fits onto my Treg coupling .

It is not registerable , but I only use it for short distances at 10 or 15 kph .

The same brilliant guy that made this for me , also made me clamps for the racks on my Trak Shak so that the boat is held down by its gunnels , not ropes or straps .

Willie .

Hi Slush,

There a lot of things required to make a trailer registerable. For example in Qld you need mud guards on the wheels, there are length limitations on the following: total, front to axle, winch post to axle, axle to rear, width, couplings, lights, agregate mass, tare mass, etc. etc.

I just went through the process of researching boat trailers and wheels (2 weeks ago actually). Started off by buying the Tinnie Mover wheels. Ok for moving around firm surfaces but a nightmare on sand and uneven ground so I took them back. I then thought about having an engineering firm make up a basic trailer that we could stow on the camper but I came across the problem of making it registerable. This pushes the cost way up due to the requirments need to keep it legal so in the end it was easier to buy one from a reputable company that specialised in fold up trailers.

There are quite a few varieties and everything is covered from Aluminium to Gal; single to triple fold; suspension and non suspension modles and then some. I ended up going for one of the cheaper registerable fold up trailer I could fine that was easy to stow and tow. This was the Flip-n-Easy. If you are interested, the following models are what is available in Australia (that I know of) and their price.

In no particular order (tare weights with wheels attached - pricing as of 2 weeks ago from various dealers):

Real Eazy 57kg $1550.00
Little Bulldog 67kg $1990.00
Flip-n-Easy 60kg $1099.00
Dunbier 56kg $1150.00
Felk ~40kg $1025.00
Almac ~55kg $1785.00

As you can see there is big difference in prices.

If you are handy with a welder, you could make one but I would get a copy of the regs from Dept of transport to see what you would have to include.

The only problem I have now is storing the outboard somewhere that is easy to access but strong and protected from dust and rock damage but thats another story.

Regards
David

Hi Slush , i know what you mean about problem with getting boat to water , when i was away last year it was a real pain in the butt...to the point where in the end i just didnt bother....i too looked at one of them fold up jobbies , but in the end took up my engineer sons offer to make one for me , for me reg isnt a prob cause i have a small homemade regoed boat trailer anyway , so for the amount of times i'll use the foldup and the minimal distances i'll travel with it i will simply use the rego off my homemade boat trailer ........cheers .......Dave

Ok, so I just had a brainwave... May be too much work to warrant doing this. But consider none the less.

Say you got a rectangular piece of metal. Something strong enough to hold the weight of the tinny. Somehow attached it to your roof so that it slid (consider how _Affordable_Storage_Drawers.aspx slide out, something similar). Then had extensions that let it slide from the roof diagonaly towards the ground (So maybe a material with some flex that is still strong). Then BANG. Boat is on the ground. Detach it from the rectangle, slide the rectangle back up and secure it up on the roof. Go fishing...

Kinda like making a boat ramp outta ya roof. :P

1. Could it work?
2. Has it already been done? (Like my last brainwave...)

Cheers Anand. and hope it helped.

Would like to point out that the Real Easy trailer has spring suspension to stop the boat from suffering weld fractures when going over pot holes, Most of these other trailers do not have suspension and cannot tow at any real usefull speed because of this . Would recommend the real easy brand as you can also go a lot further with your tinnie already set up, tackle, esky, beer and all !!!!! Very compact for a fold up with suspension. My father has one of these and I am in the process of selling my home made jobbies so I can get one myself.

Hi Slush
I too have been down the path you describe. I originally bought the cheap little wheels that clamp on at the rear of the tinnie and made a coupling to attach the boat to the towbar on the Tojo. After getting sick of repeatedly fixing the wheels (if fact the actual wheels were the only original bit on the attachment by the time I finished) I decided to upgrade to a proper folding trailer. I found the Almac aluminium trailer to be ideal but a bit on the pricey side for what it is and by chance one day on eBay I came across a very similar unit from Ballarat called a Bocam (call Rob at Bocam on 0353358673) folding trailer at a much better price. The quality of engineering turned out to be outstanding and I would say a little more robust than the Almac trailer. I have made a bracket to mount the axle assembly across the Ä frame of the caravan and the rest of the trailer fits inside the tinnie - which sits on a Custom Boat Loader on top of the Tojo - for travelling.
regards
Hopper51