Winching : The basics of trailering your boat

[Werries]

Howz guys... I follow SeaSick's thread on the basics of Offshore fishing and its very interresting. So without wanting to highjack his thread why dont we do a topic on trailering your ride after you've beached.

I had a 4,8m Gemini duck with a hand winch fitted to the trailer which wasnt really a problem getting it on the trailer, but I've sold it and I'm in the market of buying a decent skiboat
I'm looking at some 16-18ft boats...some of them have electric winches fitted to the trailers but most dont. Now i know its hard labour to handwinch a skiboat onto the trailer so the answer would be to have a winch fitted onto the bullbar of your towing vehicle.
I have a Disco 3 and to fit a Warn 9000lbs winch would cost about R28k incl the fitment plates etc required for the Disco's .
This is a lot of money just to fit a winch

 So I guess my question is : Are these trailer fitted electric winches effective enough to get the boat trailered (bairing in mind that my fishing would be mostly family based with the wife and my boy, which is 11) cause in some cases I wouldnt have my buddies there to help load the boat.

What would the loading dinamics be ? Would you still have to hook the trailer on the towbar and reverse your vehicle while someone else operates the winch ?
Please share your tips and do's and dont's ...

[Rory mundy]

depending on the size of your boat have the appropriate electric winch mounted onto the trailer lots of chaps have this think shags setup on his yeld is like this. A 16 foot boat is easy to hand winch on with a break neck trailer just make sure you have a decent hand winch not these tiny pieces of junk that just seize under pressure

[shagnrelease]

Having the winch on the trailer works great, providing its mounted properly and has a big enough guide roller, one of the advantages is that you dont need to have the whole vehicle and trailer lined up exactly because its not getting pulled from the vehicle, as long as my keel strips are in line with the rollers up she comes and loads in 3 minutes. I use a 9500lbs t-max winch, it works fine. I had a problem with a water logged control box, which after much arguments got replaced under warranty as they admitted to having a problem so with the new box she is 100%.

[shagnrelease]

up she goes.
 

[Werries]

 :shre:
Shag, do you still have to "drive into" the boat while winching or can you winch it while static. Reason I ask is that I dont have a towball on the front of my disco and would have to reverse .
This will mean that I wont be able to watch the boat coming correctly onto the trailer if I'm behind the wheel.

[shagnrelease]

I generally push the Trailer a wee bit, but I have also seen guys make huge k*K like this and have damaged there boats when they go off the roller slightly. But there is only so far you can push it up anyway, and then the back of the boat is of the sand. In areas where the sand is very soft I generally just winch her straight up without moving the Van, I use a snatch block to increase the pulling power on the winch and just keep the revs up. As I dont want to chance getting the vehicles bogged down.
So you should be fine with Reversing the landie, I know the Vans had there power connection on the back of there car for the other 18ft Kosi, and it worked like a charm.
I would look into putting a hook on the front of the Landy it makes life a lot easier on the sand, as well and parking up as some of the resorts are a bit tight on parking space, and they dont cost a fortune,you dont need to have big ARB bull bars and you get the ones that you can remove as well, so you dont have it sticking out all the time.

[tkei]

Werries,
To date we have only used a hand wich to laod our 21ft butt cat. it helps build up a thirst for a beer but can be damn hard work if you dont have 2 of you to share the load.
We recently bought a 2nd hand warn 9000 which we are int he process of mounting on the trailer. We are making a [place to put a spare battery to operate the winch on the trailer as we use up to 5 different vehicles as rugular tow vehicles, so we cant vehicle mount the winch. None have front tow hitches at present hence the need for a battery to be fitted to the trailer. the ball ache here is we need to carry the battery to the trailer every time we laod the boat otherwise it will go awol.
Ski boat magazine had an article about winching last year i think done by Mr Winch. Quite interesting.
Make sure you have a decent hand winch as stand bye. I have seen many guys without this, and when the winch electrics fail, its a real ball ache.
I am goung to mount a tow hook to the front of my pajero soon. one f the square tube ones with removable hook so its not in the way for everyday use, but there when i need it.

[shagnrelease]

Werries,
To date we have only used a hand wich to laod our 21ft butt cat. it helps build up a thirst for a beer but can be damn hard work if you dont have 2 of you to share the load.
We recently bought a 2nd hand warn 9000 which we are int he process of mounting on the trailer. We are making a [place to put a spare battery to operate the winch on the trailer as we use up to 5 different vehicles as rugular tow vehicles, so we cant vehicle mount the winch. None have front tow hitches at present hence the need for a battery to be fitted to the trailer. the ball ache here is we need to carry the battery to the trailer every time we laod the boat otherwise it will go awol.
Ski boat magazine had an article about winching last year i think done by Mr Winch. Quite interesting.
Make sure you have a decent hand winch as stand bye. I have seen many guys without this, and when the winch electrics fail, its a real ball ache.
I am goung to mount a tow hook to the front of my pajero soon. one f the square tube ones with removable hook so its not in the way for everyday use, but there when i need it.

Dont you think You may go through a hellm of a lot of Battery's like this, I have seen battery destroyed through extended winching. Would it not be better to perhaps replace the power cables with some decent clip on clamps, and then you can just connect it to which ever vehicle you are using on the day, and with some decent revs it will keep the power on the Battery?

[Prego]

@ Werries, if you are not keen on fitting a winch, what you can do as many I have seen had DBSC is once you have beached, line up the trailer with your boat.  Then dig deep ruts in front of your trailer wheels then pull the trailer in those ruts and bulid up sand in front of the wheels. Now disconect your trailer from your vehcle and hook a tow rope from your vehicle to the boat. Slowly moving away pulling the boat gradually onto the trailer. Once up and in place re-hitch the trailer & off you go.

Easy as pie & no big bucks spent.

[tkei]

Dont you think You may go through a hellm of a lot of Battery's like this, I have seen battery destroyed through extended winching. Would it not be better to perhaps replace the power cables with some decent clip on clamps, and then you can just connect it to which ever vehicle you are using on the day, and with some decent revs it will keep the power on the Battery?

Shag,
I am aware of this, but as I said, no cars have front hitches at this stage and to have them fitted to 5 cars incase seems a bit crazy. If tyhe cables are extended they need to be about 8m long to go from winch to front of say a prado, taking some angle into account, plus the width of the car as batteries are always on different sides. We cant always hitch up straight as we have a semi slipway situation at high tide wich doglegs right so at times you have the trailer at about 130 degrees to the car.
I am putting hitch on the front of my pajero to allow me to connect to the car battery.

[CLS]

I have a 510 Seacat and loading the boat is simple, no winch required, I have chains on the breakneck trailer allowing only a limited break, and not allowing the back (trailer) to dig into the sand, drive the trailer under the boat as far as you can then winch the last meter or so, 5 min, no sweat. .

[shagnrelease]

Shag,
I am aware of this, but as I said, no cars have front hitches at this stage and to have them fitted to 5 cars incase seems a bit crazy. If tyhe cables are extended they need to be about 8m long to go from winch to front of say a prado, taking some angle into account, plus the width of the car as batteries are always on different sides. We cant always hitch up straight as we have a semi slipway situation at high tide wich doglegs right so at times you have the trailer at about 130 degrees to the car.
I am putting hitch on the front of my pajero to allow me to connect to the car battery.

roger that!

@ Werries, if you are not keen on fitting a winch, what you can do as many I have seen had DBSC is once you have beached, line up the trailer with your boat.  Then dig deep ruts in front of your trailer wheels then pull the trailer in those ruts and bulid up sand in front of the wheels. Now disconect your trailer from your vehcle and hook a tow rope from your vehicle to the boat. Slowly moving away pulling the boat gradually onto the trailer. Once up and in place re-hitch the trailer & off you go.

Easy as pie & no big bucks spent.

yip also works well, provided you are going to get enough traction on the vehicle to move the boat from a dead start and the beach is nice and hard and level, otherwise its clutch burning and lots of digging time, way to much PT for a lazy guy like me.

[Cam Mundy]

Winches can be a blessing and a curse, we’ve had them in a few vehicles and have managed to have more than one thing go wrong.

In My dads old Hilux the Live wire wore through on the body  and shorted out luckily the only electronic devices in those old bakkies is the digital clock in the dash so no harm was done.

On Rory’s Fortuner he had the winch mounted inside the bumper which is very neat but you can’t see the dam thing or get to it very easily so we didn’t notice a loop in the drum which made a nice flat spot in his radiator.

The most dramatic moment though was when we forgot to take off the receiver for the wireless winch control and the which conspired to turn itself on while the car was parked outside the house, it sucked the cable and hook through the guide into the winch drum while steadily overloading the battery which obviously began producing hydrogen gas like crazy so when the cables eventually caught fire KABOOM drama drama drama vloek vloek vloek and about 40K worth of damage along with some creative stories for the insurance.

We now have a 14000 pound hydraulic winch mounted on the back of the tractor which we treat with a great deal of respect.