Stopping Trailered Boats From Flipping

When the Cat is beached or in storage, you could layout a tarp on each side of the Hobie, fill with sand, then pull the corners up and catch grommets with hook on tie down. Pull tiedown across the hulls and connect to other side. When you are done, dump sand and retrieve tarp.

When the Cat is in the water, tie a series of buckets along each side, and fill with water, and let submerge. There would be no stessful weight on the boat, unless it tries to come out of the water. You could add hundreds of lbs of dead weight for the weight of some plastic buckets. Sort of like a vertical sea anchor. When you are done, dump water out of buckets. This is assuming you have it securily moored or anchored!

When towing, use an equalizer hitch, which could preload the trailer with several times the weight of the boat alone. Obviously you don't need the hitch for the boat weight, but it would make the trailer more stable in an apparent cross wind, or induced head wind of driving down the road at 75 MPH.

What, you say you don't tow at 75 MPH? I know, that depends on whether you are headed out for a fun time of boating, or coming back to work after a short weekend!

I've found the H16 tows great at up to 85mph; but in heavy crosswinds I've also had to slow down to 50mph and seen the thing skip sideways on one tire in gusts. That always takes your breath away.

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Warm regards,

Jim

Alot of the issues when trailering have to do with weight distribution. Make sure you have enough weight on the tounge. But, don't put too much or you won't be able to steer. I have found that a properly loaded trailer will behave much better in gusty conditions. Proper tire inflation helps too.

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Nick

Current Boat
In the market
Previous boats owned
'74 Pearson 30
'84 H16
'82 H18 Magnum
St. Louis, MO

Hmm we've never had a problem here at all, the fleet of boats at the club are always just left on tires in the hobie park, with all the rigging on, and we take off the sails, the boom, and the tiller. Never heard of anything bad happen to a boat....:S

I have seen boats dry stored flip with and without trailers at Mission Bay in San Diego. Usually the boats were blown off the trailer, but one took the trailer too.

I have seen three boats capsize while being trailered from the water with the sails still up. One driver stopped and a group of people jumped on the hull flying side (boat and trailer flying a hull), one driver stopped, and the untied boat sailed into the back of his car, the last driver kept going as his boat hit a light pole and capsized backwards off the trailer. This resulted in a broken light, a bent pole, a bent mast, broken rudders an castings and a severely bruised ego. It was a thing of wonder to watch.

I worked at a dealer and one customer was driving home from a weekend in San Felipe when his boat flipped while under tow. His boat started to blow sideways across the shoulder as the road turned to the right and a head wind became a cross wind. As the boat and trailer started to fly a hull, he slowed and attempted to pull to the side of the road. As he did this the boat and trailer picked up and tried to flip onto the car. The mast held and the mast rotation bolt dug a nice hole in his car roof. He ended up cutting the tramp lacing and placing rocks in the hulls (hatch covers) and on the trailer next to the cat box. He limped up the road to where a burm acted as a wind break and spent the night there. He said even with the burm, the car, boat and trailer shook violently all night long. He said he drifted off to sleep around four in the morning and woke up at sun rise to a windless morning.

The only better story of surprising wind damage was the week prior to Alpha speed week at the Ponds in Palm Springs. Sailmaker Chip Buck drove his Honda inside one of the cargo containers and spent the night inside hearing the other containers blowing into each other and into the water the whole time wondering if his container was next.