It pays to check your boat weights

[wacoaus]

Just a word of caution, if you dont know what your boat weighs it would pay to get it weighed.
A while ago I bought an old 14 foot fibreglass runabout, because it wasnt very big and the trailer it came on doesnt have brakes I wasnt worried about it being overweight (750 kg needing trailer brakes) so have dragged it around blissfully carefree on trips that are never less than 600 kms roundtrip.
Out of curiosity I just put it over the weighbridge and found out that it weighs 730kg dead empty (no fuel or anything in it)
Thus with fuel and fishing gear it needs trailer brakes so if the police had of pulled me or I had an accident I would have been in big sh*t.
So once again, if you dont know, get it checked you may be surprised

[mustang5]

Where did you get it checked?

[cormorant]

Look up your local public weighbridge - there will be one locally the trucks use ad just weigh trailer/ boat only. Costs 10- 20 bucks or 30.with official ticket and receipt down here. We in the past have used the tip / wastestation weighbridge but they can get peeved. Just run the car and trailer over then drop trailer and do the same agin with the car only.

Must say that even trailer weight get fat fast with a extension drawbar and 2 spares, electric winch, heavier jockey wheel walkway all added after the builders plate .

[Lancair]

I semi regularly use our local tip, one wet afternoon as I was paying for my dumped load of tree cuttings, I asked the bloke if I could come back with my boat hitched up. No worries mate, was the reply. I returned later that day with the boat, drove on, stopped and read the combined weight on the digital read out and drove home again. My ute weighs 2.28T with just me and full fuel, combined was 3.85T and the boat had only 50 of 140 litres onboard. With the trailer and boat full of fuel weighing in at 1.635 (another 65kg for 90L) only, I'm only 335kg away from the GCM limit for my ute !! Add in some camping gear, eskies full of ice, fishing gear etc and there's not a lot of room left to be legal with any passengers in the ute !!