Retrieving to a trailer - is this a bad idea?

[aquaplane]

You are wrong on several counts.

The 750Kg unbraked trailer is a max 750Kg of trailer and load, anything more and it has to have brakes.

My First 18 weighed 800Kg + trailer, that boat will weigh much more.

What any particular vehicle can tow is plated on the VIN plate. You need to look it up.

That trailer looks to be an undersized lashup and is bound to attract attention from plod.

 

[MarcJ]

Oh bxgger! Looks like the trailer is going to have quite a bit of work doing to it in the next few weeks! Many thanks for putting me right on this!

 

[Lakesailor]

Adding brakes to a trailer is expensive. Minimum £500. Think about a secondhand trailer and sell yours.

The guides on your present trailer are too constricting they need to flare out at the top to literally guide the boat down as you drive out of the water.

Like this

Also forget what you read about percentage figures for towing limits. Your van will have a maximum towing weight on it's chassis plate or registration document. You cannot exceed that with the weight of trailer and load. That is only for braked trailers. As has been pointed out 750Kgs is the maximum Gross Trailer Weight if you don't have brakes.

I would go to a public weighbridge first and find out if you are even close. It may be that putting you motor and stuff in the van and mast on the roof you can scrape in under 750Kgs.

 

[CreakyDecks]

Forget this trailer sailing nonsense and join Dee Sailing Club! Quite a few Vivacities on the moorings there.

 

[MarcJ]

Forget this trailer sailing nonsense and join Dee Sailing Club! Quite a few Vivacities on the moorings there.

I'll be looking them up!
Thanks Lakesailor - it's got to worth a trip to the weigh bridge, displacement is listed as 800kg so it will be close! I've got a mechanic who's very good at coming up with affordable solutions - I'll have a word with him..

 

[Croak]

Forget this trailer sailing nonsense and join Dee Sailing Club! Quite a few Vivacities on the moorings there.

It is a slippery slope.......

 

[Lakesailor]

I'll be looking them up!
Thanks Lakesailor - it's got to worth a trip to the weigh bridge, displacement is listed as 800kg so it will be close! I've got a mechanic who's very good at coming up with affordable solutions - I'll have a word with him..

I didn't know the quoted displacement. When full of your gear it'll weigh more. The trailer must be good for 180/250Kgs as well. You may be on a loser on that one.

 

[MarcJ]

I didn't know the quoted displacement. When full of your gear it'll weigh more. The trailer must be good for 180/250Kgs as well. You may be on a loser on that one.

Yep I think so too...

 

[Avocet]

Just a quickie, the maximum your Sprinter can tow will NOT appear on the chassis plate. The biggest number on that will be the Gross Train Weight (I.e. The most that the van, plus its contents and occupants, plus trailer (and everything on the trailer) can weigh. With a LWB Sprinter, it's likely to be a pretty big number, you'll have no problems there. A completely separate issue will be the maximum weight it is allowed to tow. That will be two numbers - one with and one without brakes on the trailer. Forget about "half gross weight", that's not what determines legality (or otherwise). It may or may not be on the registration document. Best bet is either the handbook, or phone your dealer with your 17 character chassis number (sometimes called a "VIN").

 

[MarcJ]

Thanks Avocet, as you surmised there's no problem with the van, couldn't see a figure related to whether the trailer is braked or not. In the handbook it gives a figure of 2800kg max towing weight, total weight for trailer + van of 7500kg.

 

[penfold]

Just a quickie, the maximum your Sprinter can tow will NOT appear on the chassis plate. The biggest number on that will be the Gross Train Weight (I.e. The most that the van, plus its contents and occupants, plus trailer (and everything on the trailer) can weigh. With a LWB Sprinter, it's likely to be a pretty big number, you'll have no problems there. A completely separate issue will be the maximum weight it is allowed to tow. That will be two numbers - one with and one without brakes on the trailer. Forget about "half gross weight", that's not what determines legality (or otherwise). It may or may not be on the registration document. Best bet is either the handbook, or phone your dealer with your 17 character chassis number (sometimes called a "VIN").

Mercedes' website says the towing capacity for the current Sprinter range is 2000kg for a braked trailer.

 

[MarcJ]

Given that the trailer plus boat is probably going to be about 1000kg then 2000kg is fine, just need to get some brakes sorted!

 

[Lakesailor]

A list of Mercedes can specs. Scroll down till you come to your model. http://www.anchorvans.co.uk/specifications/mercedes.php

 

[MarcJ]

A list of Mercedes can specs. Scroll down till you come to your model. http://www.anchorvans.co.uk/specifications/mercedes.php

Thanks, I was just looking at that! 2800kg

 

[Yosilas]

Maybe use your existing trailer as launch/recovery. Then pull it all onto a braked flatbed for road transport.

 

[davidpbo]

I am surprised at the weight it can tow. I have often looked at vans for towing as they are useful for my work but most of them seemed to have a max towing weight of 2000kgs which I assumed was to (combined with the payload of the van) out of tachogragh territory.

My boat and trailer weighs about 2400 kgs, hence I have a 4x4.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Forget about "half gross weight", that's not what determines legality (or otherwise).

It can be. The legal limit for an unbraked trailer is 750kg or half the gross towing vehicle weight, whichever is the lower. There may be even lower restrictions still placed by the manufacturers

 

[Lakesailor]

It can be. The legal limit for an unbraked trailer is 750kg or half the gross towing vehicle weight, whichever is the lower. There may be even lower restrictions still placed by the manufacturers

For marketing purposes. We switched from a 5 door 4x4 to a 3 door.
Mechanically identical and just a little bit lighter, but the unbraked weight dropped from 750 kgs to 550 kgs. No justification whatsoever. I contacted Suzuki, who were basically not interested, to enquire why. They may just as well have said "sod off".

 

[Avocet]

Could have been anything. It's the engineers back in (?Japan?) who would make that call. Might have been something to do with the lower towing stability of the shorter wheelbase, or maybe different rear brake line pressures because of the different wheelbase. During the type approval braking tests, they have to add the mass of the maximum unbraked trailer that the car can pull, when meeting the requirements. Hard to say, but it's unlikely to have been a completely random choice.

 

[Avocet]

It can be. The legal limit for an unbraked trailer is 750kg or half the gross towing vehicle weight, whichever is the lower. There may be even lower restrictions still placed by the manufacturers

For an unbraked trailer, it's half the towing vehicle's KERB weight - but we've already established that this shouldn't be an unbraked trailer! Any lower restriction imposed by the manufacturer will always "trump" that "half vehicle" figure. That (as I understand it) is quite old UK legislation from when few manufacturers made any kind of official pronouncement on maximum trailer weights. Nowadays it all goes on the type approval tests the manufacturer carried out and will be printed on the car's EC Certificate of Conformity.