Things that happen when towing

[drevil]

The other day I was coming back from the Gold Coast in reasonably heavy traffic doing about 90-95kph. I was in the left lane when I spotted a dog about 100 meters ahead running down the side of the road towards me and I said to my wife "Geez, have a look at that dog".

No sooner had I said that the stupid bugger runs right out in front of me! I hit the horn to try and scare him off and hit the brakes, but towing a 1.5 tonne rig at the back full of gear there's no way I was going to miss him.

The dog turned and tried to outrun me, but not a chance. I copped him fair in the middle of my bumper and I felt him get crunched all the way and out the back of my trailer. I had my kids on board too, and we all felt sick after feeling it work its way under the car.

Made me think, though, if I was driving my commodore instead of the Rodeo ute, it could have been a lot worse. It was a big dog, so maybe the airbag would have gone off if I was in the commodore, my boat could have shifted under braking causing an accident with all the other cars boxing me in, or if my wife was driving, she said she might have swerved to miss the dog not thinking about all the other cars on the highway.

I was a horrible end to an otherwise great day out. Just wondering if anyone else has any towing horror stories?

[DaneCross]

I posted this when it happened but...
Not long ago (May I think) we were on our way home from chasing mackerel off the Goldy, my mate was driving dad's hi-lux, towing my boat. It was raining and the roads were wet. We took the Redland Bay Rd exit and approached the right-hand corner into the underpass. As we approched the green light, the lights turned orange so my mate, being a young and not real experienced (or bright :-X), tried to run the red. He took that 'bit-too-much' into the corner and lost the back end of the lux. It slid out, jack-knifing the trailer. As we slid through the intersection sideways, looking out our right window at my boat I remember thinking, "I did remember to pay that insurance bill didn't I?"... As we made it through around 180deg, the trailer pushed against the back right of the tray of the Lux causing boat and trailer to roll on their side :o :o End result was us sitting in the middle of the intersection; boat on its side, boat still on trailer and trailer still attached to one very bent tow bar, fuel, fishing gear and 14 mackerel strewn across the intersection.
We/my mate, got off fairly lightly. Minimal damage was done to the boat (just a few battle scars) and the Hi-lux pulled up ok too (towbar needed replacement and minor panel beating). The fish were washed, the boat, trailer and car repaired, and some valuable lessons were learnt. Oh yeh, I did have the insurance paid up ;) (not that we needed it in the end :-/)
Dane :)

[Heath]

Drevil,

May have been a bit of a emotional ordeal, but you did the right thing & just smack the dog. Could have a lot worse trying to avoid it with a boat on the back.

[ba229]

Yep, i'm with heath. Hit the dog and accelerate if you need to. nothing worse than loosing the whole lot cause you tried to brake quickly in traffic.

[ANYFISH]

bloody hell
those 2 stories makes mine look a bit tame.

all i did was drive home about 100 klms one night, wake up the next morning and take the boat to work to give it a wash, only to find that when i went around a roundabout one of the wheels on ny trailer went from being straight to being about 120mm out at the top!!

Well a new hub and a couple of bearings and seals later (and a quick measure of the bearing diamiter on the axle) saw the trailer as good as new.

cheers anyfish

[boatboy50]

Hey Guys,
Ive got a horror story too!
I had a Hydrofield 18 (built to survey, weighed just under two tonne), and originally towed it with a VR Holden Commodore (totally legal).
Had a great day out of Manly, towing back to the Goldie ran into some troubles.
The trailer was brand new, with brakes on all four wheels. Just entered the highway at the Redland Bay turnoff (has that spot got some ghosts?), and started pulling up to speed.
As i hit the highway, id just reached 90km/h, when a big truck passed in the next lane over, doing about 115km/h. The suction from the truck caused the big Hydro to suck in towards it. As the truck left at great speed, it caused the boat to start swaying. Within one second, it had become out of control. I looked in the rear vision mirror, and i could see the boat completely sideways (its amazing how much you remember). All the other cars had slowed right down and were well and truly out of the way, and the hydro took up three lanes as it swung from side to side. The Commodore stayed rock solid, as i accelerated to stop the swaying. I reached about 105km/h before it settled down again. In all it took about seven seconds.
I then gradually slowed down, before cruising home at about 80km/h very cautiously. I towed the boat straight to the trailer manufacturer, and asked why, to which they really couldnt answer, except for adding sway bars and money.
I quickly sold the Commodore, and bought a V6 4WD for its sheer size, and never had a problem again.
In hindsight, i was lucky in a number of ways, it could have gotten very ugly and sad.
Regards
Darren

[Sportfish_5]

Darren - was that your Hydrofield featured in F&B a while ago that was refurbished ??


Cheers

Greg

[MY-TopEnder]

It must be something about commodores and boats that don't mix but when i was headed down to Viccy Point a while back i got an orange light and the bloke infront of me could have made it but stopped... anyway i hit the anchors and the boat jumped to the side and was throwing the ass of my VS around a bit.

I've had another one when towing the boat it put just that bit too much pressure on an old trans cooler line. Anyway blew it and sprayed trans oil all over the place. Miles out of the nearest supercheap and K-Mart being useless i was left with no choice but to duct tape it and limp to a supercheap to get a hose. Finally fixed it and limped it home for a more thorough inspection.

Another time i had 2 big bails of old clothes to be used as archery bails in a box trailer... anyway these things were close to 300kg each, they went on there with a forklift. Anyway coming round the inner city bypass i came in there a bit hot and it was enough to tilt the trailer nearly to the point of rollover.

And just in the last week i'd gotten on the freeway on my haul to work up the M1... had a good free space between Klump Rd and Gaza Rd so i got up it and punched "a respectable speed" anyway out of nowhere i saw a pigeon dive infront of a 4WD and missed that then THUMP.... bounce off and made a bit of a mess. Turns out it damaged my radiator.

[fishy_phil]

gday people
never havd one my self as i drive an old ZH fairlane which weighs heaps, but i saw this one. there was this red P plater in a VL commodore towing a little 7x4 box trailer going about 90 km/h around a slight right hander and since the trailer was loaded very poorly...heavy things at the back...it started to fish-tail..so what does she do...hit the brakes of course. so she hits the brakes trailer jackknives and pulls the car over aswell the hits a powerpole ripes the trailer off the car and half the car goes with it.shes unhurt but very shaken up.
MORAL: trailer fish-tail do not brake...accelerate!!!
cheers
phil

[fishy_phil]

the closest ive come to having problems while towing was in my old mans cruiser, coming up the pacific highway. im sitting on about 90km/h fully loaded car and trailer...all up about 1.5 tonne in the trailer and about the same in the car. i come around a corner and sneeze...and when i look up again ive got to brake hard to stop intime for the backed up traffic from the upcoming roadworks. the trailer tries to fish tail but i steer it out of it. now that gets the blood pumping. damn near 6 tonne of cruiser to stop as fast as you can, without tipping/rolling and keeping the vehicle from going into the creek on the left and outta the way of the B double coming the other way!!!
thats as bad as its been for me.
cheers
phil

[ba229]

Yeh had a mate who wrote off a VN commodore with a box trailer on the back. same as usual, fish tails and brakes, then a gaurd rail :-)

[Dug]

Two! First many years ago first I blew the motor in my Subaru and borrowed a V8 Kingswood and tandem car trailer to tow it home. Coming down the highway into Sydney the whole rig started to sway, first the trailer, then the car and trailer, then the car on the trailer the trailer and the car, it was raining hard and I had 4 lanes of highway. Going down hill too fast trying not ot hit the brakes [smiley=stunned.gif] [smiley=stunned.gif] [smiley=stunned.gif]
we were doing about 120 mph at the bottom of the hill swaying across all 4 lanes #The poor hitchhiker in the passanger seat was VERY white and VERY quiet.

Second was driving from Canberra to QLD again a kingswood with a 16 ft Clark tinny and 85 Merc on the back. #On a long straight stretch a mag wheel and tyre came past the car #I said to my son " Look at that someone has lost a wheel" it was mine. My wife was following in another car and having fits. We pulled up OK. While we were having lunch someone had tried to steal the mag wheels but could not get the lock nuts off so had left the wheels held on with 2 bolts. #On the weekend, outside Dubbo, midsummer, mid afternoon 100 degrees F and the first car to pull up had a spare set or Anunger wheel nuts that he gave me!!!

I was and still am amazed

[Sportfish_5]

Ahh Dubbo >:( >:( >:( >:(

Spent one night there and had a handheld GPS, digital cam and mobile phone stolen from my car while I was checking into a hotel in the middle of the day on the main road to Western Plains Zoo 8) 8) 8)

Love the zoo though ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Sean]

aproaching an intersection, light was green, raining, bloody ambulance came through the red light, the car in front of me brakes heavily, which made my car unstoppable, straight up the back of him. :(

[nisrol]

hmmmmm ; sounds like the moral of all these stories is don't try towing with a commodore Ha Ha Ha

cheers andy

[Cloud_9]

Had a near miss.
my driveway is very steep, hooks up the boat to go fishing, slowly down driveway, bump at bottom and clunk, stops to look.
i forgot to latch the towhitch on. boat had jumped off the towball and got stuck on the drawbar, very lucky, new car and all.
verycarefully blocked wheels on boat, rolled car forward till trailer dropped back on the ball :-X
could have been very expensive.boat could have run over the car. :o

Cheers Cloud 9

[Dug]

That reminded me of the best one I saw. A Red Plymouth Firebird 455, #Eagle on bonnet, Fake hair, gold chain, real estate agent driving, very expensive Platinum blonde in the passenger seat. With a 18 ft Haines sport on the trailer. A steep ramp in Jervis bay so he does the speed down the ramp slam the brakes on to launch the boat trick. Except he forgets to unhook the boat first ;D ;D ;D ;D
The whole rig slides into the water including the blonde, screaming all the way!!!! the car sinks and it is deep enough to drag the boat under too so it sinks........ on top of the car. They swim free and blonde storms off we were going for a dive anyway so ( when we stopped laughing) we geared up and hooked 2 x 4WD's on and towed the whole disaster out. It was the best wreck dive I have ever done ;D

I sank the coast guard landcruiser in Yeppoon when the breaks failed but it was totally stuffed before going for a swim no great loss.

[boatboy50]

Hey Sportfish,
Yep, that was my Hydro.
Nothing bad on the trailer manufacturer though, because there was nothing wrong with it that caused the incident.
The boat was very high sided on trailer, and along with the canopies and clears, had a great deal of windage.
Poor old Commodore never seen the light of day again. Im sure it must have bent the chassis or something nasty, so it was gone very quickly!
Regards
Darren

[drevil]

Great story Dug - always better when it happens to someone else. 8) ::) ;D

[basserman]

not mine but one that my marine mach mate saw was
a bloke towed his 20foot mono back to port macquarie only to find when he gets out to unhich that the tow hitch was just sitting on the lip of the tow ball with the latch still open
so that was a 100km odd drive along a highway around cornors and slowing and speeding up #:o now thats what you call luck!

now for me
was towing my mates 4.1 poly home from fishing with a slight drizze (first for about 4 mounths) so needless to say the roads were VERY slippery
went up this hill near my home that is made from gravle tar and is very smooth and slippery in the wet anyway we started to lose traction goin up the hill so we both decided to go down the other side very slowly as it has a esse bend in it any way we were doing about 40km and started to brake to get around the esses well ute wanted to slow down but the boat had other ideas and we soon saw the boat trying it's best to pass the ute
well boat hit the tray on the back and finally stoped and a quick get out and look found nothing wrong at all except a small scratch on the polly

morale is if your going to do anything do it slowly so nothing gets hurt ;D
but your got to love poly boats ;D

[matt_fraser]

There are some good stories there. I've got a couple of minor incidents, where I was pretty lucky.

Its amazing how quickly a boat can get a sway up and how scary it is. Not thinking at all, I swerved to miss a frilly lizard on the Arnhem Highway to Kakadu, doing about 110kph. The boat got a massive sway up and I felt the car (commodore!) getting its back end pulled side to side as well. Fortunately I somehow managed to control it. But had the heart in the mouth for a few moments. I dont swerve anything anymore.

Travelling to Maroon Dam one morning before dawn, after heavy overnight storms I hit water on the road at 100kph. Didn't see the water at all, and it lasted about 40 metres. Somehow I managed to aquaplane in a fairly straight direction - I slowed down a fair bit after that.

Final one was a broken draw bar. cracked at the winch post mount. First I knew about it was when I heard a terrible noise and looked in the rear vision mirrow to see sparks going everywhere. The draw bar was dragging on the bitumen, but very fortunately didn't break. I managed to do a Mcguiver to limp to the next town to get welded up.

matt

[yockman]

Here's one that still makes my hair stand on end.
Was about to reverse boat into backyard and asked wife to keep the kids out of the way. "Yep, no worries." she said. Mucked about for a minute, then hopped in and started backing. 3yo daughter, who I could see standing off to the side, suddenly starts screaming and waving and pointing at drawbar. Hit brakes, jumped took a look. There is 2yo son hanging under the drawbar by his arms & legs, enjoying the ride. Ensuing conversation between wife and me is not reprintable here :-X :-X :-X

GOTTA watch those young'uns when reversing

Cheers,
Yockman

[adamleah]

My old man was towing his trailer full of new furniture he'd just purchased along the windy hills of Mt Cotton.
As they rounded the next bend his mate asked him if that was Dadstrailer that was over taking them. Of course it was ::)..... The trailer had snapped at the A frame and eventually ended up in some farmers fence...

[gunna]

My dear old old old old dad drove a couple k from the Labrador ramp back towards Surfers with the anchor bouncing along 30yards back. How that didn't wipe something out still amazes me.

[Jeremy]

OK I've got two, both from towing my 15' tinny.

First was when the Hilux was only about a year old. Didn't drop the tow hitch onto the bar properly so it unhitched when I drove out the driveway and smacked into the tailgate. Was still connected by the safety chain, but some damage to the tailgate. I've seen a few other utes with the same marks on the tailgate, so I know I'm not the only one.

Second was just around the corner heading off for a fish trying to drive too fast. Had to hit the brakes and ran up the back of an old corrolla. Fortunately hit it very soft and no damage was done.

Very easy to become complacent about towing!

Jeremy

[Black_Rat]

I'd have to agree with you there Jeremy, the complacency, on the way to Manley yesterday was at a set of lights waiting to turn right. Lights turn green and I went around to quickly, trailer rocked and rolled a bit but thought nothing of it and kept driving untill a truckie pulled along side me and was shouting to check the boat. I pulled over and had a look to see the boat had shifted to the left to a point where the keel was of all rollers and just sitting on the right hand skid. [smiley=hammer.gif].
I had to re - tighten the strap and limped to my mates place where to two of us bounced it back into place, could have been a lot worse.
Note to self 'TAKE IT EASY'.
Damien.

[nictim]

30 years ago heading down Tempe Hill in Sydney 5.30 Friday arvo peak hour traffic half way down axle of my Worsley 24/80 overtakes us car and boat sideways all the way down couldn’t believe I missed every car (18 years young and silly no licence no insurance) the things you do

[Ebs]

In the dawn hours one Saturday morning, 2 mates and myself(driving) were travelling on the twisty roads through the cane fields near Beenliegh on the way to Rudy Maas with the boat in tow.
Hit one sweeping right hander corner with a bit too much speed on board(in a hurry as we got away later than I would have liked), had no option but to let it all drift off the road towards the cane field. Now there were road signs and power pole to the right and 8 foot tall cane to the left. Mate in the back seat wakes up to look out the rear passenger side to nothing but cane whizzing by his window...F#$&@k. Luckily we washed off enough speed & managed to steer it back onto the black stuff with nothing more than a huge heart starter & a wake up call to oneself. If your late, your late, don't try & make up time. :o
PS. was in HG Monaro, not Commodore. ;)

[gavsgonefishing]

A few years ago I was towing a 620 haines hunter warrior up to the sunshine coast in my holden one tonner. The boat and the back of the tonner was loaded up as I was going camping for several weeks.

Just past the 110 km sign on the highway, sitting on about that, and felt a bump, looked behind and noticed the boat and trailer airborne for a second, the car started dancing, and I very very slowly tryed to slow the car down and keep it on the black stuff. I had lost the rear wheel.

Funnily enough I past a towey on the side of the road helping someone else when I am trying to manage slowing down several tonne of very expensive fibreglass, a smick ute and not shit myself at the same time.

It took a while to find the wheel, as it traveled from the right rear and ended up down on the left hand side.

Thank the boat god there was no one else near me. The axlle mark scoured in the road was there for a long time to come reminding how bloody lucky I was

[Smithy]

Another VS Commodore story.

Mine has heavy duty suspension and the 1.6 tonne tow kit.

Tandem axle box trailer with dodgey brakes with all of our fishing clubs gear for running a fishing comp at Boondooma Dam. First hill I went down with a couple of little whoops on it put me into fishys and yes I did do the wrong thing and applied a bit of brake which worsended the situation. I eased off to ride them out but then got to the point of no return and did the wrong thing again which is the natural instict and ended up doing whoops from about 90 degrees across the road to 90 degrees the other way before sliding down a bank sideways. Commodore got out of it not too bad with bent rims from sliding dead sideways on the bitumen and a totally twisted boot pan and rear end. Trailer and gear onboard were another story and everyone showed their true club spirit to get through that weekend.

[Burley_Boy]

Know that hill well Steve. Lived at the top for a while and everytime it rained there would be multiple crashes even saw a VW roll and go on fire...

Anyway with towing incidents I must say that the Hope Island roundabout was memorable when I pulled up behind a large expensive boat and 4WD with a cool character behind the wheel. He gunned the engine and took off towards Sanctuary Cove.......as the boat slides off the trailer and parks itself in the roundabout :-X Looked amusing from my car but he seemed strangely less cool????

My first boat and trailer gave me a lesson. It seemed a bit noisy so after launching the boat at Budds Beach I grabbed the tire on the trailer to check if there was any movement......the tire then just fell off! Learnt how to change the bearings real quick!

Not a trailer story but scary anyway. As a young fella in Sydney had a 750 Kawasaki lined up at the front of the lights crossing Parramatta Rd at Concord. Lights go green and half a dozen bikes roar off as we've all snuck up the front. Snap it into second gear while accelerating a fair bit and the chain snaps wrapping itself around the rear wheel giving me a complete lockup at 50km/h (ish) held it straight and didn't drop it but scary as hell and could have ended a lot worse than what it cost to fix.

[dnej]

Mate of mine bought a trailer sailer.Decided to go for his first sail,and went about fitting the removable end of the draw bar,to his car ,putting the pin in place.
Backed out of his driveway,onto the road, and up the first hill.Got part way up the hill, only to see the boat sailing down the hill backwards.
Missed everything,and he discovered the detachable part of the bar gone from his vehicle,but still attached to the boat.

When he fitted the pin,he had not put it through the corresponding internal hole, but rather missed the removal part all together.
Very lucky
David