Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

As much as I love it, sometimes I think me and this boating stuff is never going to come together.... Went to the storage building and got my boat saturday morning... Me and the wife took it out both saturday and Sunday to fish...had a great time both days, 85 degrees, sunny, fish were biting... more importantly no issues with loading the boat ( well there was one sunday but that was because my wife backed the trailer in too deep..but no big deal, loaded up the boat and then sunday evening took the boat back to the storage building.. again, no problem, boat's in her spot, my wife and my son are up on the boat spreading out the cover while I unhooked the trailer from the truck... now here's where I screw things up ( again )... I walk around the boat to the back, my wife and my son are standing near the rear fencing of the boat straightening out the cover, I think I'll help, but instead of going around and climbing up the trailer ladder, I unsnap the swim ladder and climb up... Just as I step onto the deck, BAM... the trailer pivots and the back end of the boat slams down striking the skeg / the fin on the bottom of the motor against the concrete.... realizing that I had screwed up, I jump off the deck to the ground ( not a smart move when you're a big ol boy who is recovering from surgery and a broken leg ). As soon I jumped off the ladder, then the trailer pivots again and now the trailer jack stand hits the ground.... well, much to my surprise there didn't "appear" to be any damage done... the skeg looked fine, nothing broke off, dosn't look as if the prop hit the concrete, I looked over the transom and all over the lower unit looking for "cracks"... couldn't find anything wrong.... but I'm wondering what are the chances that even though everything "looks" ok, that I screwed something up? Like I said, sometimes I don't think me and this boating stuff are ever going to work out.

i keep some wood blocks under the rear part of the toons for that reason.
you're probably fine, you'll find out next time you take it out.

Just remember we all learn from our mistakes. A year from now you will have more experience and your boating will become more enjoyable...trust me

Ron Burgundy wrote:Just remember we all learn from our mistakes.

That explains that PHD I received in the mail last week from the school of hard knocks

I’ll take the devils advocate on your experience Roland. I know when we purchased our new boat and trailer the dealer didn’t do any setup or prep with the boat and its trailer. The fact is the boat hadn’t ever been on or seen its trailer until I pulled it out of the water on it personally with my own pickup. I suspect most transactions are carried out the same way in general. Most trailers are generic in nature and designed to fit or accommodate most any “pontoon boat in this case” that a person could put on it. Which is fine in generic terms but then the dealer / or owner needs to perform the proper tweaking to make everything “right”. What your experience is stating to me is that your rig is lacking proper tongue weight for your combination and needs a bit of adjustment to make everything right:

If the tongue weight is too light, the trailer could sway while driving; if it is too heavy, you will have difficulty steering and maneuvering the towing vehicle safely. Experts agree that an acceptable tongue weight is between 9 and 15 percent of the gross trailer weight (GTW). You can perform a simple calculation to find out what the ideal range is for your vehicle.


Determine the weight of your trailer. You will need to know the actual weight of your trail, or gross trailer weight (GTW) to calculate your ideal tongue weight. You can find this information in your trailer's owner's manual, or drive the trailer to a public scale for weighing.

Calculate your ideal tongue weight range. Multiply the GTW by 9 percent and then by 15 percent to determine what your ideal range for the tongue weight is.

Calculate your maximum tongue weight value. The maximum tongue weight is the lowest of: 50% of the tongue weight rating of the trailer hitch, or the hitch extender's maximum tongue weight.

Determine the actual weight of the tongue. For small trailers, you can measure the weight of the tongue using a standard bathroom scale. Place the scale at the same height as the hitch ball on the tow vehicle and put the tongue of the trailer directly on the scale to read off the weight.

Adjust the weight of the tongue. If you need to make the tongue lighter or heavier based on your ideal reading in Step 2, you will simply need to shift the cargo (in this case your boat) you are carrying forward or backward until you reach the ideal target weight.

So in this case if your boat/trailer combination weigh 4000 lbs. not really unrealistic with a fully rigged ready for use boat like yours and you divide by let’s say the 10% it would mean you should have 400lbs of tongue weight with your combination. So in this case unless you weigh more than 400lbs. yourself there is just no way the boat should have tipped on its fulcrum point (its axle) like it did with you.

I'm with Bamby...I bet you don't have enough tongue weight. I'm glad nothing got hurt.

Right on Bamby. I doubt you have hurt anything. But it shouldnt have happened in the first place. Hope you and your toon are both alright Roland.

Again you got good advice with the exception of the bathroom scales. Most bathroom scales don't go high enough to read the weight of the trailer tongue. I know mine is o.k. but that's because it's so damn heavy. If it and from what you said in your post it is too light a tongue weight. You will need to move your boat foward some. I think that you said that you weigh around 260lb in another post. That means your tongue is less than that if you tilted your trailer. A commerical scale would be of some help in determining your weights.

I tried to go find a picture of your boat with it showing the lenght of the tongue showing, I could not find one. A lot of dealers will put a boat on a to short tongue trailer and then you have no room to move it forward. It is also important to have enough tongue so you don't have a problem with the boat hitting the tow vehicle while turning sharply. Just something to think about before you do anything or move your winch stand forward.

Just another thought, You may want to do this with a full fuel tank.

He said his wife and kid were in the back too. He is probably OK on the tongue weight.
I have a couple of PT 8x8 cutoffs from a friends piling house construction that I use. I slip them under the corners of the trailer frame and crank the tongue jack up until they are solid under the frame. That makes everything pretty solid

I agree with GregF, if all those folks were at the back of the boat then it has nothing to do with his tongue weight. The blocks under the rear of the trailer will solve his problems in the future. Add up his, weight and his wife and kids and you will see. You just had too much weight at the rear, has happened to us all at least once. I doubt you will have a problem with motor. I did the same thing the first time I put mine up for the winter. Told my son to go on a diet, LOL!

Let's see....I've been out boating on a pontoon 4 times. 3 of those times didn't go as planned. I'd say you're doing this boating thing just fine! Don't give up yet. The cool thing about a boat is you can put it in the barn, leave it for a week, and it will still love you when you get back to it. Take a break, and realize that boating is just another adventure for you and your family!

Here's another method to determine tongue weight.

Drive onto a public scale so that the trailer jack would just land on the edge of the scale. The tow vehicle should be off the scale
Take your first weight with the tow vehicle attached.
Drop your trailer jack and lift the trailer clear of the tow vehicle
Take a second weight this is the true weight of your trailer
Subtract the first weight from the second
The difference is your tongue weight

Boat should be in normal towing condition .... full tanks of gas and water (if any), loaded coolers, anchors, etc all on board

Let's see....I've been out boating on a pontoon 4 times. 3 of those times didn't go as planned.

One thing about boating is the more you do it the better you get.
It doesn't take many perfect trips to improve your batting (or is that "boating"?) average.
The other thing is the more you boat the cheaper it gets.
If you go out a lot your per hour cost goes down.
Guys I know who only go out a few times a year would be saving money if they were paying $100 an hour to rent.

Almost everything in life has a learning curve. The lesson here is to not give up or give in. No one starts anything as an expert. It's a driving reason why a forum like this exists. There is a lot of quality people here trying to pass on Herb's style of PHD for the real life guys,( not the Pile it Higher and Deeper people) life experiences. I told a neighbor of mine once with a PHD in education, that I would only call him doctor when he could successfully remove my appendix successfully. I've met a few people that demand to be called Dr. because the have a PHD in something other than the medical field.