Another trap for trailer towers to be aware of :-)
This morning towing the boat back from
Cooktown I hit another one of the many road bumps up in that neck of the woods near Black Mountains and the trailer popped of the tow-ball at 85k.
Well the ride from hell began with a jerk and then the sways. Not to bad as I backed off gently, but the road was narrow and the cutting table drains very wet. The inside duels left the road surface on about the third sway and hit the mud in the drains, the sways changed to violent jerks with the boat now dancing dangerously from one set of duals to the other throwing one side in the air at each time. Absolutely no way to steer the car now just had to point it down the middle of the tar and applied a little power to try to gain some control, slowly now come to a halt with the chains holding the hitch above the road.
Whew - ride over.........lucky pointers here - 1) Crossed safety chains, 2) a good tie down strap on the rear of the boat and 3) a good turnbuckle on the front of the boat. Still do not know how both the car and the boat or either one of them did not turn over - it was very close.
Now sitting in a cutting on a blind corner, got the trailer back on the ball and found a place to pull over to determine the damage. Cause was easy to determine - the hitch was still locked down in place. The adjuster screw lock nut had worked loose and the adjuster bolt had started to unwind and when the last bump was hit it had unwound enough to let the hitch pop off the ball. Go figure that, it was only a couple of turns?
Trailer needs numerous repairs, as the boat was thrown side to side it somehow managed to remove all the Teflon slides and destroyed the winch post, springs broken on both sides. The boat hopefully only suffered some small dents on the bottom of the two outside tri keels and the car -
well its a get out of goal free card I think.
Take my word for it, that is one ride you do not want to go on - go
check the adjustment on your tow hitch before your next trip :-)
I would have to say I got out of that rather lightly in the end and BOAT will live up to its name (Bring Out Another Thousand) :-) (Whats worse is - Just spent a lot of $ doing the trailer up underneath)
Cheers Tony