For people new to boating I always recommend that you take a Boat Ed course and exam. You can also look up boating quizlets and tests online to increase your knowledge. A question often posed will be; boat trailers with too little tongue weight tend to do what?
If the boat trailer has too little tongue weight it will tend to make a dangerous fishtail movement. This is a swaying motion that can put the towing vehicle and boat trailer out of control, leading to an overturn, skid, or overturning.Â
Boat trailers with too little tongue weight are dangerous
In the video below you can see a compilation of trailers fishtailing and swaying. If these examples don’t give you enough of a head’s up on how important tongue weight on a boat trailer is, I don’t know what will.
Related questions
Below you can find out more about boat trailers and tongue weight, with some related questions and answers.
What is tongue weight?
Tongue weight is the unit used to measure the force applied downwards from the trailer’s tongue onto the vehicle’s towing hitch. If you don’t have enough tongue weight it can lead to the towing vehicle lifting up at the back end, resulting in a dangerous swaying motion.
If you have too much weight on the tongue, the towing vehicle can sag down, leading to problems with braking distances, driver visibility, and overall handling.
A rule of thumb to follow is that tongue weight should be somewhere between 9 and 15% of the GTW of the trailer. GTW is gross trailer weight.
Why is tongue weight important when towing your boat?
If you calculate your trailer’s tongue weight incorrectly, you could end up in a serious accident on the road.
Your trailer and boat could start swaying, you could lose control of your vehicle, and in the very worst case, could cause a fatal accident.
It’s critical that you know your trailer’s GTW and understand how that effects the tongue weight when towing a boat.
How to measure tongue weight?
As we’ve already established, your trailer tongue weight should be between 9 and 15% of the trailer’s GTW. You can find your GTW on your manufacturer website, but if you’ve made modifications to the trailer, it might now be different.
The easiest way to calculate and measure tongue weight is to use the following equation:
GTW X Percent (Manufacturer recommended) = Tongue Weight
The last word…
Please don’t ever start towing a boat trailer unless you are 100% certain that you have calculated the tonight weight and know what’s safe to tow.
There are hundreds of trailer accidents every year on our roads that could have been avoided if the driver had properly calculated tongue weight and driven safely. Accidents can also be avoided by making sure you have the right size and weight of trailer (check here).
I hope the video above and explainer has shown you why is tongue weight important when towing your boat. Please don’t forget or ignore it.
