Geez, every blow boat captain at the local yacht club up here wears one of those!

 

Yea, I have to agree that if you want to have some entertainment, just hang out at the boat ramp, when a t-storm is rolling up. It is a hoot. I spend nearly 100 days a year on the water bass fishing. The boat ramp bloopers are the best way to top off a great day fishing. As for the backing up thing, just take your time, the more you do it the better you will get. I personaly do not look over my shoulder. I use side mirrors only and I place my hands on the lower side of the wheel to prevent over-correcting. My truck has glass top on it. So no center view at all. The wider the trailer the better, my bass boat trailer is 8 1/2 feet wide, easy to find.

 

When I tent camped a lot, we always tried to get a campsite near the boat ramp. When we were too tired to ski any more, there was always boat ramp entertainment and vocabulary enrichment.

 

Yes, the boat ramp is very entertaining. Nothing like watching peglegs that can't make it up the ramp during high traffic times and people dropping off the end of the ramp when the water is low to lighten up a bad day of fishing. Fortunately, I haven't been one of them. I once retrieved another boat that floated away while I was waiting for my trailer to be put in the water for me to drive on. A friend of mine almost backed my pontoon boat into the side of the dock beside the ramp, but he wasn't use to pulling such a big boat with my Mountineer. I didn't like it either, so I upgraded to an F-150.

 

That doesn't help when you have an ARE fiberglass bed cover

 

Yup the wider the trailer, the easier it is. I have a 19' center console bayboat where the trailer width from tire to tire is 9'. The hardest part is keeping it in the 10' lanes on the streets. It's a breeze backing down ramps and what not even with a glass top. As for seeing how far to back down, I keep a few mental pics of the waterline on the fenders for launching and recovering.

Ps - When recovering, do you guys prefer to power on or float on?
I prefer to power on myself, keeps me from having to back down to far in the water.

 

Depends on the boat and trailer. I had a 26' Bayliner 2609 deck boat that had a catamaran hull on it. The thing was so freakin' bow heavy and had SO much hull in contact with the trailer bunks that you would have drag it literally 15' up the bunks, and you had to have arms like Ahnold Schwarzeneggar to do so, even with a double-reduction gear on the winch.

I used to power-load it (even though the launch ramp said not to). I'd be on in 10 seconds. Clip the bow eye, snug the strap, and I was out of the water in 5 minutes or less. It usually took longer to go get the truck and trailer from the lot than it did to get the boat on the trailer.

Now, with a roll-on trailer, power-loading could be quite difficult, especially if you have a flat-bottom boat. V-hulls can be tricky too, but once they're on the rollers, they tend to want to slide back off. Boat US/West Marine sell a cool gadget for bass boats that allows the bow stop to latch onto the bow eye.... just drive it up until it latches, and pull 'er out!

-Joe

 

Then again you could always do what I'm doing.... cheating

I'm in the final stages of installing a custom rear view camera system. Mounted the camera in the rear handle like many others, but for the monitor I removed the mirror from the drivers visor and made a custom mount for the monitor. It came out nice and flush. Will be posting the mod when it's completed. Have to snake some wires yet when it warms up a little.

 

Dad has the bow stop that latches. It's really good whether one of us is by ourselves or we have help when boating.

I'm thinking about modifying my pontoon boat and trailer for an item such as this since the low profile trailer has no real way of centering. I also need to install some guide rollers and a winch mount on mine for a winch for the boat. The current winch is for lowering the platform for very little water or driving the trailer out from under the boat.

 

Ha ha ha!
Oh jeezz aint that the truth!!

 

Just bring someone with you when you go fishing, take the line and attatch it to the boat and to their waste. Back up as fast as you can and launch that boat into the water. Have them wrap the rope around the poles to slow it down. And you've just sucesfully backed up, dropped and pulled out in about 2 minutes flat. I actually did it in 30 seconds one time with no one around. But i forgot the plug at home....

Glad i had some gloves to shove in there.

I've only powered on 2 times. Both times kicking up rocks, and one time destroying the prop. Never, NEVER again. I can still float up, pull up and get out in 5 minutes. Plus i'm nice enough if i mess up and don't get it on striaght, i circle around.

That way i don't feel guilty when i spend 20 minutes giving some guy in a captains hat the bird

 

Ok, I have always thought of myself as a pretty tough guy. I figured nothing I read here could shake me up but, while reading this post I was making woman sounds.

First off, around here if the Coast Guard catches you tying a line to someone's waste and launching a boat, you'll be fined for water pollution.

Second, how do you attach a line to their waste if it isn't err...firm...what if it's more like your member name?

Third, where exactly did you shove the gloves?

I can understand why you did this in less than 30 seconds with no one around but, if I had to choose I'd rather just fish from the pier.