Boat Accidents

[josef otway]

Just wandering if anyone has had a accident while towing their boats from the result of bearing failure or blown tyre. Would like pics if possible. New to this chat site, any help would be great. CHeers

[fat-buoy]

No photos but I had a spring break on me while doing 100kph on the highway ... all ended without injury or major damage but had potential for disaster.
Springs on the trailer were a single parabolic which means that they don't have the leaf pack and it is a single flexed piece of steel used as the spring.. downside is that the spring broke for whatever reason which let the axle and wheel etc go backwards until it jammed on the mudguard and brake line.... lots of smoke and squeeling tyres as the wheel locked up and everything came to a grinding halt :(

I am sure people have had plenty worse.

[josef otway]

cheers glad to here no one was hurt i have a idea to help with the loss of a wheel or flat tire just trying to get bit of info on other peoples miss haps . We lost a wheel on the trailer last year an it ended up costing about 8 grand in repairs an in the middle of nowhere left my mate on the side of the road for 6 hours to get new parts . made it a expensive fishing trip .

[MTAQ/BTAQ]

I have had a bearing burn out, a lot of noise and some smoke but no danger - waited for it to cool down and I replaced the bearing at the side of the road, had to disconnect the trailer and drive into town to buy new bearing. I now change bearings every 12 months and no more troubles.

[johncar]

Lost my wheel off my boat trailer (single axle) on the Captain Cook Bridge Brisbane at 100KPH many years back when I was younger and even stupider. Caused a bit of excitement for all the traffic around me but I didn't lose control or anything crazy and managed to drag it over to the left lane, lots of smoke and ground the excess U bolt studs off but still enough left to hold OK, Luckily had a spare and pinched a couple of wheel nuts from the other side and went steady until I got some spares to fix it properly.
My own fault, as I had just changed the wheel before leaving home and forgot to nip up the nuts. A lot wiser now though/...
Police on the scene were very helpful too I must say.

[Crocodile]

Hello All,

just last Sunday I stopped to see if I could help out a boatie who had lost a trailer wheel.
Small tinnie, 8" wheel had come off.
The stub axle had been ground away so that there was about 40% of the threads for the castellated nut left, by this I mean that the under-side had been ground flat by the bitumen, leaving only the top half.
I did not think that you would get a nut to stay on.
I suggested hiring a car-trailer to get it home.
What would you have done?

[TheRealAndy]

I had a blow out on a lucinda trip (from brissie) a few years back. Not far out of bowen when the tire went. It bent the mudguard back up into the tire somehow, smashed my new LED trailer lights and left some scars in the polycraft. Cost me an extra night in townsville, but the tyre shop I went to the next day just happend to be manned by an Ausfish member who sorted me out with a new tyre at a really good price.

Sorry, no pics, its too hard to take photos when you are on the side of the national highway with trucks screaming past.

[Steeler]

Formula 1 technology for boat trailers, hmmmm.

[mal555]

I've had the gal. spring break, just behind the 'eye' in an eye and slipper set-up, the front axle moved forward onto the guard and began to smoke. The quick fix to get her home was to twitch some light chain (anchor?) or rachet strapping to hold the unsecured axle in place against the functional axle.
Beware of low-lifes that loosen trailer wheel nuts at boat ramps, the wheels start to wobble, slogging out the holes in the rim and eroding the wheel studs.
I never leave a public ramp if the trailer has been there overnight without going around and checking with a wheel brace first, and always carry a few spare wheel studs, nuts and bearings.

[josef otway]

cheers for your info loving this fishing forum could get hooked

[Qlder1]

Years ago I lost a wheel off my 12ft tinny trailer in the middle of town . Wheel rolled nearly a full block ,through an intersection and bounced off the gutter neatly into a bank window. Luckily it was a Sunday and bank was closed. It bounced off the obviously toughened glass only cracking it and I managed to retrieve it. I quickly swapped a couple of wheelnuts from the other tyre to get home.

Isn't it odd that when you are going maybe 30kmh the lost wheel seems to accellerate as it passes you..

I actually got a bill for I think $2000 from that bank to replace the window. My older sister somehow fixed it with the bank manager and I didn't have to pay...don't ask.....:o:o

[tunaticer]

I had a trailer hitch fail losing the lot about 25 yrs ago. The safety chains were attached to the hitch too, the boat and trailer parted from the hitch mounting plate that was still attached to the towball. The entire lot ended up about 20 metres into the scrub beside the road. That was the last time i ever towed a mates boat. Damages to the boat were a few scratches to the tinny, the trailer though was wrecked. Glad it wasn't a 6m glass boat.

[ovakil]

Driving up north I saw a tinnie fall off trailer ended up in some bush,they had forgot to put safety chain on.
I was towing my race car home,sitting on about 80 k all of sudden hear a bang & sparks everywhere.I thought I didn't hitch trailer right but the A frame of trailer had split just in front of box section.
Only thing holding it together was a bar that I welded on recently to attach a winch.
Was a 2nd trailer that I bought.

[trymyluck]

Came home from 1770 2 years ago with no dramas, cleaned the boat out and left it on the car as I was taking the wife fishing the next day. We got about 10km on the Bruce Hwy when something just didn't seem right with what I was seeing in the rear vision mirror so I started to pull over and was almost stopped when the boat and trailer seemed to drop. Got out and the 50 x 25 box section that the hitch was bolted to had torn in half.

Mark

[Triple]

Just wandering if anyone has had a accident while towing their boats from the result of bearing failure or blown tyre. Would like pics if possible. New to this chat site, any help would be great. CHeers

Call me a cynic, but joining a fishing forum and only asking this questions has me wondering?
Why would you want pics of this specific type of failure? (not many people decide to take happy snaps of at these sort of moments on the side of the road)
Why only bearing failure or tyre blow out? (Winch post failures are probably just as common)
Do you make/design trailers and want ideas for re-designing a trailer to minimize failures?
Do you work for a transport department and want safety certs brought in for all boat trailers? Yearly inspections?
Are you a uni student doing some sort of study?
Or is it something you are just worried about when towing and want to see how badly it all end up?
Just curious.

[josef otway]

triple cynic we had this failure and one of my kids is righting about a real life experience at high school an picked the problem we had on our last trip as you said people dont take pics when this happens an we didnt i was trying to help out . as i have found out so far there are afew things that go bad with trailiers not just tires an wheel bearings as we have been up an down the west coast towing boats an trailiers for the last 20 years its the first time we have had trouble touch wood so if any one can help out it would be great (mind you anything to make things better for towing boats would be worth looking at )

[MyWay]

here is one tire from 2 days ago
had some wheel bearings few weeks ago but didn't take photo
and few spring broken around Xmas time

[MyWay]

Hello All,

just last Sunday I stopped to see if I could help out a boatie who had lost a trailer wheel.
Small tinnie, 8" wheel had come off.
The stub axle had been ground away so that there was about 40% of the threads for the castellated nut left, by this I mean that the under-side had been ground flat by the bitumen, leaving only the top half.
I did not think that you would get a nut to stay on.
I suggested hiring a car-trailer to get it home.
What would you have done?
i would call tow truck or RACQ