Tie me trailerboat down, sport
Our top tips for keeping your boat secure on its trailerHaving previously lived for many years in the Northern Territory, and having spent my working life on the water, I've witnessed some very interesting trailerboat situations that were none too amusing for those involved.
Some of these involved fishers, and travelling ones at that, often interstaters who migrated to the Top End to fish for barramundi at the end of the Wet and during the Dry seasons.
Invariably, many travelled overweight with a trailerboat in tow and the inside of the boat crammed with all manner of tents, fuel drums, ice boxes, generators, fridges, freezers and so on.
Now, that’s a big call for a trailer that was only ever designed to carry a boat, motor and fuel tank.
There were often a generous number of ropes and straps holding the boat to the trailer, but in reality there only needs to be three tie-down points.
On many occasions, the 3000km fishing trip was aborted on arrival due to medium-to-serious hull damage caused by the way the boat was secured.
Okay, so the best place to tie down a boat is from the stern on each side to the trailer below.
The trailer forward of this point is designed to flex to a certain extent. If it didn’t, it would likely crack and break due to the stresses of driving.
Tying down a boat forward of the stern, such as midships or over the forequarters, is a recipe for disaster. As the boat and trailer flex in different directions undue force is put to work on the gunwales under the strapping.
This results in the hull sides being pulled away from bulkheads and, in the case of alloy boats and especially dinghies, the hull being pulled away from thwart seats that make up the integral strength in the design of many dinghies.
Damage may only amount to small cracks or, in older boats, popped rivets. Fibreglass boats may sustain cracked glass on the bulkhead or even cracks through the hull sides.
I have seen a couple of dinghies arrive in the NT after the long haul and the thwart seats have been torn out completely and, in one instance, they were completely missing, probably laying on the tar way back towards Alice.
The third area to tie down is the point of the bow. This will allow boat and trailer to flex freely.
Nylon straps are the most common type of boat tie dow,n but there must be padding placed under the strap between it and the aluminium or fibreglass hull. Failure to do so will cause heat from friction to melt through the strap and you might be looking at your boat sitting on the bitumen rather than the trailer.
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