Fort Myers Beach to Tampa Bay

[Pammy]

I have picture of my tow rig on my phone. Don't know how to transfer it here.

[Tampa Dave]

We've been "tooning" around the Tampa Bay area for about a year now, and it is a wonderful place to have a boat. Just this past Saturday evening, we launched at Lowry Park (across from the Zoo) on the lower Hillsborough River and cruised south to downtown. It is a wonderful cruise and a good freshwater launch. Here is a pic of downtown Tampa at night. On the way back to the ramp, stop in at Rick's on the River for good food and live music. Have fun with your new toy!

[Pammy]

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[ToonGuy]

Holy cats if you do nothing else get the proper hitch on that thing...if your trailer has torsion axles you are well on your way to destroying the front one, not to mention the stress on the wheel bearings and tires...

[Bamaman]

Pammy has a straight axle and leaf springs on that trailer, and it appears to have surge brakes.

The Class II hitch is a 1 1/4" receiver hitch with a 3500 lb. rating. The Manitou is around 3100-3200 lbs. with the 150 hp engine. I don't how heavy a galvanized pontoon trailer is, but I would imagine she's a little over the weight rating by just 500-600 lbs.

When auto manufacturers spec out their vehicles, they're very, very conservative on tow weights that a vehicle can handle. Florida is about as flat as any state, thus it's probably safe to tow with this vehicle. I wouldn't want to pull this boat/trailer with a MKX for 1000 miles, but short runs down to the bay or to local lakes would probably be perfectly safe.

[Ron Burgundy]

I think it was just a one time thing to bring the boat home. She has a lift out back where the boat will stay I believe.

[Pammy]

Absolutely a one time deal. But it pulled great.
The trailer wasn't actually set up for this boat as it was a last minute decision to tow. I will change the trailer jack and front boat stop positions in order to take a bit of weight off of the tongue. The boat is too far forward, shifting too much weight onto the tongue and lifting the front end of my car. Otherwise, there were no issues.

Bama is correct on the trailer and Ron is correct about my set up here at home.

It took me forever to figure out how to post that picture and then I think I finally just lucked into it. I probably can't duplicate the procedure.

Anyway the boat is home and Wes is a happy man.

[badmoonrising]

To post a photo, scroll down to this:



Click on "Browse", then select the location of your photo locally (desktop, etc.), then after it is uploaded, click "add the "file" and then click "submit".

Alternatively, you can use a free service like Photobucket which gives you the image tags, all you do is copy and paste.

[badmoonrising]

See this thread for more:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5565

[Pammy]

The picture was on my phone and too large.

[badmoonrising]

Mike has the maximum file size set at 2 MB. Most digital cameras and cell phones are 2x that by default. Resizing the photo to under 800x600 or using Photobucket would work.