Your First Time Towing
A few basic assurances
If you are already a competent and
safe driver, with a little bit of information and a lot of common sense,
I’m confident you’ll be able to drive
your boat and trailer to wherever you
want to go.
Across Canadian, millions and millions of people safely trailer their
boats to the lake weekend after
weekend. Having a boat on a trailer
gives you recreational getaway
options that you couldn’t get any
other way.
I’ve been asked to offer a few
words of advice to first time trailer
drivers. Well, you’ll find trailering a
boat is easy to do. Preparation makes
all the difference. For example, by
carrying a jack and a spare tire, you
needn’t worry about having a flat.
Let’s look at driving a boat on a
trailer for the first time.
Getting started, make certain
that your vehicle is in safe and
road worthy condi-
tion with good
brakes and
tires and that
you’ve gone to
a professional
hitch shop to
have the wiring
harness and trailer hitch
installed. Match the hitch
capacity and type to the safe trailer
capacity of your vehicle and then
match the new boat and motor, mak-
ing sure that when you put it on the
trailer, load it up with fuel and other
items, that it is within the weight
range for the vehicle and hitch.
A strong word of advice; work with
your dealer to get a professionally
matched package. Next, you’ll find lots
of safety related information in this
issue of Trailer Boating Canada in the
Knowledge column on page 20.
If you’ve never driven a vehicle
pulling a trailer before, the first thing
to keep in mind is a matter of physics:
adding a trailer and boat will possibly
double the weight that you are used
to driving.
Double the weight means half the
acceleration and twice the stopping
distances you are used to. It’s also
double the length of vehicle, so when
maneuvering through tight quarters or
reversing, you have to drive to
accommodate the added size and
weight and the effect it has on everything you do as a driver.
Passenger vehicles range from
small cars at around 3,000 pounds
with limited trailering capacity to full-size sport utility vehicles and pickups
that might weigh 6,000 pounds and
have the capacity to tow 10,000
pounds or more. The question is,
how do you stop a 16,000 pound
vehicle?
The answer is trailer brakes.
Larger trailers require brakes of their
own. That helps stopping but you’re
still talking about a much heavier
load. The smart way to travel is in
the right hand lane, leaving lots of
room between you and the next
vehicle and just accept that you will
be traveling at 110 km instead of
120 km or more.
That guy with a trailer in the left
lane doing 120 km, tailgating and trying to pass is running an unacceptable risk both for himself and for the
other people sharing the road with
him. Please don’t be that person.
The added weight is difficult to
stop and difficult to start too. Your
boat and trailer may have doubled
the normal weight of your vehicle,
and the load on the transmission,
engine and tires. Accelerating gently
minimizes wear and tear and saves
on fuel too. Once your vehicle is up
to speed on the highway, it moves
along fairly easily and reducing your
usual speed by 5 or 10 km might only
cost you 10 or 20 minutes getting to
the lake.
