Here's a little more on trailer weight adjustments, for anyone who may need further information. What follows is drawn from the extensive efforts I've made to get boat/trailer combinations up to 4,000 pounds to trailer properly:
Proper tongue weight is essential to comfort, the ability to trailer the boat at high speeds, and safety. The effect of too much tongue weight is a sort of lurching or bucking motion (up and down, fore and aft) felt in the tow vehicle. The effect of too little is fishtailing by the trailer, which will be felt in the tow vehicle as a side-to-side tugging and, in any case, can be seen in the rear-view mirror, especially coming out of a curve. The heavier the boat in relation to the tow vehicle, the greater the issue, so getting the tongue weight into the optimum range will be more critical for an M-17 towed behind a small car than for an M-15 towed behind a large SUV. If your combined trailering weight is high enough that 10% will not register on a bathroom scale (or if your scale is simply not accurate in the higher ranges), you can go to a weigh station and first weigh your car without the trailer attached and then weigh the car (just the car) with the trailer attached. The difference between the two weights is the tongue weight. Alternatively, you can construct two piles of bricks (or books or whatever) equidistant from both sides of your trailer tongue, such that they are the same height when the bathroom scale is set on top of one of the piles. Then put a piece of wood across the top of the two piles and lower the trailer receiver down onto the wood exactly in the center between the two piles. Using this system, the scale will register one-half of the tongue weight, and you can double it to get the figure to evaluate against the 10% rule. Note that different trailer/vehicle combinations may perform better with slightly differing percentages. Once you settle on the desired weight, go out driving under fairly extreme conditions (high speeds with hills and curves). If the boat bucks, reduce the tongue weight. If it fishtails, increase it. Otherwise, as long as the tongue weight is within the range specified for your vehicle and hitch, you are fine. Using these methods, you should be able to trailer comfortably at speeds up to 70 mph or a little more on super highways, even with a heavy boat (assuming a well-matched tow vehicle). You may not be able to control fishtailing no matter how you adjust things much beyond 70. At high speed, coming over a hill and starting down while going into a curve at the same time will give you the acid test. The majority of drivers, I think, will be content with being able to trailer comfortably at speeds up to 70 mph on super highways. You could probably go faster with an M-15 behind a vehicle which weighs significantly more than the boat and trailer, but that will depend, among other things, on your tolerance for risk. -- Jeff Mirus Precision 23 Owner Montgomery Fan _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
