Towing heavy boats and minimizing trailer sway.

[dhess]

Have a mate who recently acquired a 2270 glacier bay (big ar$e cat). Beatiful boat. Rides amazingly. On an alloy trailer, fueled up and loaded with gear its getting close to 3500kg.

Tow vehicle is a brand new 70 series landcruiser turbo diesel 4.5L v8 with a chip and exhaust. No lack of pulling power and having the boat attached is barely noticeable.

Problem is the trailer has a tendency to sway at around 90kph. Very nerve racking.

Any ideas for a solution?

Ideas so far include:

- Going to GXL mags with lower wider, lower profile tyres so there isn't as much side wall flex.

- Getting uprated suspension. Like most utes, even the cruisers have the suspension compromised towards the soft side to offer a decent ride whilst unloaded.

- Weight distribution hitch. Have heard mixed reviews on their effectiveness.

- Airbags.

Would love to hear anyones experiences with minimizing trailer sway.

Need to hitch a ride ASAP for an outer reef trip of 1770. :evil:

[Eug]

dual axle or tri axle? fish tailing/swaying is usually characteristic of the trailer/boat being rear heavy. how much weight has he got on the towball?

[Rhet]

Seeing that it may be difficult to re-distrbute the load on the trailer, I'd suggest moving the axles back a bit.

You would be better of just getting airbags as opposed to changing the suspension. This will assist with steering/control of the vehicle as well.

I'm not sure the rims/tyre change would make any difference.

[Bi_polar]

Plus 1 for airbags

[Dinodadog]

Sway bars like you have on a caravan. It appears that whats behind is heavier than whats up front, that means each little movement up front is multiplied down the back.

[Binder]

I agree with Eug. Sounds like to much weight in the rear. Classic symptom.

Is there any room to bring the boat a couple of inches forward on the rollers, sometimes thats all it needs.

Another trick is moving the spare and break away battery forward, otherwise moving a dual axle setup backwards can be a right royal pain.

If it was a little lighter you could just add an extra spare, but being as its close to legal towing limit for the cruiser I wouldn't want to be doing that.

[e-fish-n-sea]

i had the same problem with mine i moved the boat forward as much as i could which improved it but still had to move the wheels back on the trailer this fixed it.i tryed air bags on the patrol -didnt stop the sway

[tugger]

I have towed caravans for nearly 20 years and sway bars are the best investment for towing I don't get any sway even when trucks pass easy to install. Its not always about how much weight is on the towball its just the size of the load you are towing and its affect from wind etc

[Eug]

like you said, there are other factors involved for sure, but tow ball weight and weight distribution of the trailer will underlie the basic characteristics of how a trailer tracks behind the towing vehicle. approximately 10% of the weight of the trailer/boat should be on the tow ball, in this case ~350 kg.

to do anything else before getting these two right will only mask the inherent issue. that's why these questions need to be asked before jumping to solutions.

[bootyinblue]

I have towed boats, vans, and horse floats for in excess of 20 years and sway bars are really only a bandaid solution for when you can do nothing more with weight distribution.

A van or float is essentially a box on wheels and limited in the amount you can move the load back and forth, whereas a boat trailer has more adaptability to shift the pivot point, remembering that for every kilo shifted in front of the pivot point is a kilo off the rear essentially moving 2 kilo at a time.

Sway bars lift the rear of the tow vehicle and force the tow hitch down creating an 'artificial' weight on the tow coupling. They are not the panacea for all your towing woes and I would suggest you explore all avenues of weight redistribution before you rely on sway bars.

Plenty of caravans roll with sway bars attached......