Best way to trailer on the highway

laserxd

Member
I'm going to be trailering my boat on the highway, usually I roll my dolly up on the trailler and the hull rides on the dolly, its worked pretty well and I'm only about 10 miles to the water, the fastest I'd go is about 50mph and not for an extended time.

anyway, would this setup be bad for longer distances like 2+hrs on the highway at constant 60-80mph ? would it be better to flip the hull and have it ride on the deck?

my main concerns are,

-damage to the boat from the trailer or dolly at highway speeds
-damage from road debris like pebbles and such at highway speeds

Also, one of the guys in our fleet has a similar setup where the boat rides on the dolly, he's traveled with it and he insists that you should put the gunwale supports down and have the boat ride on the strap, my concern with this is deformation of the hull

Thanks in advance
 
I'm going to be trailering my boat on the highway, usually I roll my dolly up on the trailler and the hull rides on the dolly, its worked pretty well and I'm only about 10 miles to the water, the fastest I'd go is about 50mph and not for an extended time.

anyway, would this setup be bad for longer distances like 2+hrs on the highway at constant 60-80mph ? would it be better to flip the hull and have it ride on the deck?

my main concerns are,

-damage to the boat from the trailer or dolly at highway speeds
-damage from road debris like pebbles and such at highway speeds

Also, one of the guys in our fleet has a similar setup where the boat rides on the dolly, he's traveled with it and he insists that you should put the gunwale supports down and have the boat ride on the strap, my concern with this is deformation of the hull

Thanks in advance

It is true that the dolly gunwale supports can damage the gunwales if you trailer for a long distance with the boat resting on them. The solution to that is to use the cushion caps from Seimar.

For longer distances damage from road debris might also be an issue. So use a bottom cover.
 
Compared to a Kitty Hawk trailer, the gunwale support offered by a dolly is relatively narrow. Not very much area to spread out the force when you hit a pot hole. The best solution might be to travel with the boat in the sling, but put it back on the supports when you park it.

As for road debris, my boat goes nowhere without the bottom cover.
 
Agree with the sling only, have seen (and had) the flip up support fail, along w/ the other suggestions here about not enough surface area for good support while trailering . Bottom will not deform as long as you don't crank the heck out of the tiedown (same advice goes when roof topping), which is also a good thing for all the plastic joints (I believe that's why they came out with a stronger plastic version of the joints).

Also agree with the bottom cover, cheap insurance, even for 10 miles..
 
Kitty Hawk and Trailex are the two most popular laser specific trailers. Be sure to get the optional pivot bow support so you can load/unload single handed. You might consider a Cockpit Lockbox for packing spars, foils and other equipment. Dollies are not designed for road traveling.

Bottom and top covers always.
 
well most people in the UK tow their boats on gunwale hung trolleys on a road base with an undercover on the boat and two small ratchet straps (the domestic not commercial type) and after the first 10 miles just check that there still taught and at any convenient chance you get to check them like at the service stations so that the boat does not bounce because that would be like hitting it with a hammer and the bow either wants to be jammed tight into the bow block or set back about an inch so that it does not rub the gel coat off basically your boat wants to be firm to your trailer so that it becomes all one solid part if you know what I mean but don’t over tighten them or you will hear a crack and then it’s an insurance job I have towed my boat 500 miles like that and know people who have towed further and I don’t know of anyone who has sustained damage to any part of their boats from towing in this manner it is the way that laser UK tells us to tow them and it is the way that we tow customers boats at work and the way that we strap them down for customers to tow away and we have never had any problems and the roads in the UK are far worse than those in the US your roads are really smooth and well maintained compared to ours so you should have no problems at all. BTW the straps are best placed one through the bow eye and one that goes over the deck where gunwale supports are situated also my road tyres are only inflated to about 20 psi so when you hold them you can squash them this gives the boat a softer landing when it comes back down after being thrown into the air by a pothole but not so soft that they will come off the rims.
 
Wow, punctuation needed there Matt ;), otherwise some useful info.

As Matt says in the UK most people use a road trailer. Ensure you use top and bottom covers and load the boat and launching trolley onto the road base, strap it down securely (strap at front and one over the middle) and off you go.

I've attached a pic of our set up to give you a better idea. Ours is a double stacking road trailer and we've done many many miles using this set up with the longest drive being UK to Porto, Portugal. Boats travel perfectly fine on gunwhale hung trolleys this way.
 

Attachments

  • SS100235small.jpg
    SS100235small.jpg
    784.9 KB · Views: 148
Wow, punctuation needed there Matt ;), otherwise some useful info.

As Matt says in the UK most people use a road trailer. Ensure you use top and bottom covers and load the boat and launching trolley onto the road base, strap it down securely (strap at front and one over the middle) and off you go.

I've attached a pic of our set up to give you a better idea. Ours is a double stacking road trailer and we've done many many miles using this set up with the longest drive being UK to Porto, Portugal. Boats travel perfectly fine on gunwhale hung trolleys this way.

Those dollies look a little more rugged than the Seitech dollies typically used here in the US.
 
i've heard the new box section ones are even tougher than the old tubular ones. I have a Mersea Trailers trolly (dolly) and road base (trailer) i say this but all laser trailers in the uk are made by Mersea Trailers even the genuine ones however they will only sell the genuine ones through laser. But yeh we need them to be pretty strong here because the trailer manufacturers know most people only buy a trailer once with the boat and if it breaks they wont buy a new one untill they get a new boat itll just get mended probibily by the local garage with a welder and some meaty bits of metal i wonder how much it would cost to export the british built trollys (dollies) and road bases/ doubble stacks to match to the US - buisness oppertunity there for someone with enough money to set up an operation like that.
 
[quote=" i wonder how much it would cost to export the british built trollys (dollies) and road bases/ doubble stacks to match to the US - buisness oppertunity there for someone with enough money to set up an operation like that.[/quote]


There is already a US manufacture with the same set up. http://www.rightontrailer.com
 
[quote=" i wonder how much it would cost to export the british built trollys (dollies) and road bases/ doubble stacks to match to the US - buisness oppertunity there for someone with enough money to set up an operation like that.


There is already a US manufacture with the same set up. http://www.rightontrailer.com[/quote]

Nope. Still based on the Seitech dolly which is not intended for highway speed stresses. The UK setup is welded tubular steel.
 
Somebody should distribute those cockpit lockbox lockpit things to the uk and some decent covers that won't tear or split and are breathable and most importantly weatherproof I think those lockout things may sell to somebody who sails for pleasure and therefore only carries one rig no Sapir top section or boom and who folds their sail actually I don't know of anyone who folds a sail kinda makes it pointless but covers are something we could really do with here in the Uk and maybe a tweaked version of the lockout so that it has 6spaces for spars and a tube or two for the sails and while I'm at it apple really needs to sort out the I phone ios5 because I can't go back to correct things without deleting everything and I can't undo what autocorrect has corrected without deleting everything and they should at least put punctuation marks in an access able place on the keyboard.
 
Now I can understand why your posts are so unreadable. I thought maybe there was a shortage of periods and capital letters in the UK. :)

I guess we have to blame Steve Jobs.
 

Back
Top