Towball Mounted Winch?

What about the simple solution? A longer bit of string so that the car stays on the flat. Drive the car forwards hauling the trailer up as it goes. This assumes that there is enough space to drive the car forewards of course.
 
I get regular mailshots of 'useful' stuff. In the catalogues are always 12v winches to put on your ball hitch. Some have wireless remotes, some just a long wire with the buttons. Usual pull is around 5 ton on a double purchase. Cost? circa €60. As for pulling the hitch off the car.... Some of the worst loads are from pitching, rather than direct pull. And I suspect that the car would slide before the hitch became uncomfortable.
A
 
And to put some reality to that. I used a Pajero(Shogun) as an anchor to haul up a mast. The pull was by a ratchet come-along rated at 2 ton. The 4X4 slide before we got anywhere.
 
Entirley agree with the improbability of even straining the tow hitch. The ball and towbar are designed not just to take static pull loads, but the sometimes violent shock loading of our well maintained modern road system.

In addition, Construction and Use regs will require that the tow gear remains attached even in the violent deceleration of an accident scenarios. the last thing needed is detached trailer with perhaps a ton or more load careering off after breaking away because of tow bar/ hitch failure. The safety margin of the tow ball and tow bar is way above anything a static pull winch is going to apply. Just think of the loads involved on the tow gear when a heavily loaded trailer hits a pothole at speed.

I had a mechanical reversible winch to haul a caravan out of its storage area. Not the easiest thing to use, and we found it important to ensure the load was square to the winch, or the cable would bunch up at one side of the drum and jam it. But it made a job that took two or three people a simple single handed operation.

Towing a trailer with the car on the end of a bit of 'string' works well enough on a beach setting, and I have done it myself. However, on a slip, the driver may not see a wheel getting caught, and forcing the trailer sideways.... and off the slip? There is far less control of the situation, so risk of mishap increases disproportionately. With a winch, the operator is in instant control throughout. I have also seen a driver being overenthusiastic with the accelarator and forgetting that if he then brakes, the trailer doesn't......
 
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"Modern" cars and towing equipment - by which I mean after about 1996, need to have their tow bars and associated equipment type approval tested to Directive 94/20/EC (as amended). It's illegal to fit non type-approved towing equipment to a car made after then.

The type approval tests involve a series of both static and dynamic loads applied to the tow ball. The load varies (naturally), depending on the weight of the towing vehicle and the maximum weight of trailer it can pull. However, for a car like a big 4x4 with a maximum laden weight of (say) 3 tons, that can pull a trailer of (say) 2 tons, you'd be looking at a static test load of about 1.5 tons AND a fatigue test of 2,000,000 cycles alternating between pushing on the towball with a force of just over 3/4 ton and then pulling on it with the same sort of force.

I am pretty certain you wouldn't ever see a towball snap off or a towbar damaged before you'd dragged the towing vehicle down the slipway!
 
Fin keel onto a trailer

I have been involved in helping a few friends put their fin keel boat on a trailer.
An automatic transmission makes the car pulling much easier. I know they are not popular in UK but almost universal in Oz for bigger cars and 4X4s. Anyway not a solution for you.

I think that you should concentrate on the mods to the trailer first. Then pull the trailer out on a rope long as necessary to keep car out of water. Or you might try an extending draw bar. Good if ramp is steep enough. It might extend by 2 metres. Close it up before you go on the road of course.

Mods you need on the trailer are a cage around the keel and attachment of the boat to the trailer so that the boat can be as much as 20 centimetres above the trailer but located so that when the trailer is pulled the boat comes too and settles in the right position as it comes out.
Attaching the boat by rope from the stern forward to the trailer makes the attachment pulling forward work like a springer. It stays in place as the boat goes down onto the trailer regardless of pitch and height change.

Tall guide posts at the back of the trailer will help to guide the boat into location above the trailer.

Just persevere. With experience it will come easier. good luck olewill
 
Little Rascal.

Like William says.

Save your money and slipway grief.
Your problem is getting the boat on the trailer properley.

I had the fin-keel Foxcub. Very similar trailer and problems. When we recovered it from Coniston in 40mph winds using their tractor the keel missed the channel on the trailer twice.

Not wanting that faf again I fitted these guides.
1st time, every time. If you are visiting unknwon slipways that could be steeper just make the guide rails taller, but include components to guide the bulb into the channel at the bottom as well.

Slippyontrailer_2.jpg



Slippytrailer.jpg
 
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Yep it's guides you need, initially.

Keeping the boat in the same place over the trailer when trying to simultaniously pull both up a ramp/slipway/beach with two ropes is enormous entertainment for spectators. The boat needs to be secured to the trailer before you pull the whole lot out of the water by whatever means.

Trail sailors are usually shallow draught swing or lifting keels just because of the problems you are having. Change the boat or get waders/drysuit.
 
Re-entering the fray on this but I have a very health regard for winches and fitting after nearly being killed by one years ago when I was involved with tree work.The Towsure unit I inspected works by a taper slot on a plate that is dropped over a tow ball, the plate has three pins fixed to it to engage into three taper slots in the base of the winch.The whole assembly is held up by the tension on the winch cable and it looks to me like an accident waiting to happen,unless someone here knows different.
My solution is to fix the winch on the winchpost of the trailer using a plate with a hole in the centre and four hole on the outer corners the centre hole carries a swivel bolt that is fixed through the winch plate,fixing plate and into the trailer winch plate, the other holes carry four fixing bolts with wing nuts, removal of these and repositioning allows winching forward and backwards as required. We will see if it works.
 
William_H said:
I think that you should concentrate on the mods to the trailer first...
Click to expand...

Will, Lakie, Bob: I think you are right - it's the faffing about getting it wrong thats partly the problem. I have been looking at some local Squib trailers and they seem to have the right idea - a post at the stem which the bow fitting ties to. I have guides on the keel trough but not as good as those ones... they will be improved!


aquaplane said:
Change the boat...
Click to expand...

Nah, it's a faff but I like my 50% ballast ratio! It makes it all worth it when she's on the water :)


aquaplane said:
...or get waders/drysuit.
Click to expand...

Controversial too apparently...


I'm still seriously thinking of the tow bar mounted winch however. It wouldn't be worth it just for my local slip but I think it may make it easier to use steeper and slippier slips...

Hopefully I'll avoid this (!):

Slipway-Run1.jpg


This one's a possible in future too:

263___Selected.jpg
 
Little Rascal said:
Will, Lakie, Bob: I think you are right - it's the faffing about getting it wrong thats partly the problem. I have been looking at some local Squib trailers and they seem to have the right idea - a post at the stem which the bow fitting ties to. I have guides on the keel trough but not as good as those ones... they will be improved!

Don't be fooled by the apparent elegance of a post and attachment at the bow. Yes it is beautiful when the boat is on the trailer and being towed. However when the boat is in the water above or in the trailer the boat will be level while the trailer is pitched down in line with the ramp. So effectively the bow needs to be free to rise and fall relative to the post and its attachment point by at least 30 cms.
My friend with the fin keel boat actually slides the post forward out of the way of the bow for when the trailer is in the water only replacing it in positiojn when the boat and trialer are on dry land. This is why I referred to holding the boat on the trailer by spring lines from the stern when retrieving. olewill
Click to expand...
 
Cheers Will, I'll bear that in mind...

The problem I have sometimes is the boat will ride forward over the 'stopper' at the front of the keel trough, so I was thinking of something that gets the alignment right. Maybe I just need a better keel 'box'...

Hunter_Europa_1.JPG
 
Here's my two pence worth on trailer recovery.

The biggest problem as you have found, is getting the boat in the right palce on the trailer. Componded by the fact the water in unlikely to be clear enough to see what the bottom of the boat is doing on the trailer.

Lakesailors keel guide looks the way to go, with a good bar across the front to stop it going forward too far.

I would say a bow post is a must, but you need the bow post adjustable. As has been pointed out, with the boat level, and the trailer on the slipway slope, then you want the bow post "too far forward" for getting the boat on. but once on and out of the water, you want to be able to move the bow post back a bit to secure the boat for the journey. I'm in the process of upgrading my trailer, and making the bow post moveable is on my "to do" list.

Side guides are as important as anything else, particularly if (like me) your slipway is out in the open, i.e nas no adjacent wall to help guide the boat on. In that case you really need an extra helper or two to hold the stern of the boat to keep it in position while you guide it on, otherwise the current or wind can push it off sideways. Waders are essential for at least two of you.

I winch the boat up the slip using the trailers winch on the winch post. Once the boat is on, I secure the bow with a bit of rope, thus freeing the trailers winch, unwind the strop, hook it to my pin hitch and wind the trailer up the slip. Has the advantage of being at the right end for guiding the trailer and high up so it's out of the water. Once clear of the water, brakes on and chock, then reverse the car and hitch up to pull it the rest of the way up the slip.

I would dismiss the talk of pulling the towbar off the car, that's just nonsense.

A 4WD car is best, not least because they drive on all 4 wheels, so better on a slippy slipway, but they usually have a low ratio transfer gearbox which makes slipping the clutch less of a need as you can drive much slower with the clutch engaged. Particularly useful for reversing the trailer without clutch slip. I drive a Subaru Forester which is great, but there are plenty of other small 4wd cars so you don't have to think Land Rover and gas guzzler.
 
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Suzuki Grand Vitara. Low ratio box, 4x4, 34mpg (40 on a run)

​

I was at Coniston the other day and didn't take a piccy of a yacht trailer that had the keel guides almost 2 ft high. You could have sailed onto that trailer and been in the right spot.
 
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bak-rak towball winch

Hi. I designed the bak-rak winch system - so I thought a few words may help.
The system is designed to give flexibility of position. Our advice is to add a tow-ball to the trailer head so the winch can be used off the trailer or the car. Also for the 4x4 fraternity a tow-ball on the front of a vehicle gives another useful option - though more applicable to bogged 4x4's.
The different thing about the hand winches we use is that they can be powered by a rechargeable (good quality) drill to give really fast slack winding.
And it is the slack that can result in overloading tow-ball / car/trailer that we warn about. The one example we know of a tow-ball shearing was a trawler on a steel cable with the boat dragged out on a large wave giving a shock load to the initially slack cable. I don't think it too mealy-mouthed to say that the warranty doesn't cover that!!! Pete
 
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