Choosing the Right Size of Boat Trailer Winch

Are you getting ready for a fishing trip out at the lake? You need a trusty boat trailer winch to secure your vessel for the drive. To ensure that your boat is safely tied up, the trailer winch should be the exact size so that your planned fishing trip could go off without a hitch. Here’s how you can choose the right size of boat trailer winch:

1. Choose based on weight

Instead of choosing the size based on the length of your boat, you should take a harder look at how heavy it is exactly. Your winch should be able to handle the total weight of the boat, the gear and the motor.

Galvanized Boat Trailer Axle Prevents Corrosion

Sea water acts as the major catalyst for corrosion of boat trailer axles. The trailer parts, wheel and hubs fill up with salt water as you launch your boat off the shore. Although the hubs drain once you’ve pulled your boat trailer out of the water, this doesn’t free your trailer parts from corrosion, which is aggravated by exposure to air.

Trailer Wheel Hubs: Choosing a Perfect Fit

A wheel moves because of the axle, and the wheel hub connects both parts to make the system fully functional. Your trailer’s wheel hubs are as important as the wheels themselves, and therefore requires the same maintenance. Failing to do so might cause difficulty in steering or result in a broken axle.

Inspecting Boat Trailer Parts for Safety

Having a boat trailer makes it easier to own a boat without living next to the shore. You can simply tow your boat to the port whenever you feel like going out to the water. As you drive your boat from the shelter of your home, through the highway and onto the lake, its safety will hinge on a large part on the reliability of your boat trailer parts.

Why Learning about Boat Trailer Winch Is Crucial

As in most other endeavors, becoming a full-fledged boatman entails preparations and learning. Before getting all the needed vehicle and equipment, it would wise to start with the basics, such as familiarizing yourself with nautical terms. Boating jargon might be a bit confusing for a newbie because the amount of technical terms and boat parts you need to know is almost as vast as the ocean.

Preventing your Boat Trailer from Rusting

Boat trailers and their moving parts are as subject to rusting as the boat itself, especially if the trailer is made of steel and not of rust-proof aluminum. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to prevent rusting on a boat trailer and keep it spic and span.

Fish oil– Adding a coating of fish oil is what one could consider the “Old Reliable” method. Fish oil is one of the cheapest rust-preventing solutions available, and is renowned for its ability to prevent rusting even if the steel is fully submerged in water.

Keep Rolling: Easy Trailer Wheel Hub Maintenance

Trailer wheel hubs are what connect your trailer wheels to your trailer axle, and also makes sure both components spin smoothly, so it’s important that the wheels hubs are in great shape. It can sound intimidating to pull apart your wheel hub and poke around, but it’s actually pretty easy to do. Here are a few pointers to ensure that you’re maintaining your wheel hub properly:

A Quick Safety Inspection before Hitting the Road

Whether you are driving a trailer for the first time or the millionth time, you should always perform a safety inspection before you hit the road. In particular, you should check the following trailer parts:

Lights

As a wide load, your trailer lights serve to help you avoid accidents with other vehicles. Check the lights of your trailer if they work properly, especially the brake lights and turn signals. You may want to ask someone to help you do this so you won’t have to keep going back and forth between the driver’s seat and the rear end of your trailer.

Buying a New Trailer Winch? Consider these Factors

Boat trailer winches come with different specs and features, which means that buying a new one isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. For one thing, buyers should consider the purpose they intend for this equipment, because a winch with a permanent magnet motor is best suited for hauling light objects while a hydraulic winch is intended for heavy duty lifting.

Zinc-ing Boat Trailer Parts

Trailer parts are usually resistant to corrosion to some extent, but some take it up a notch. For the record, boat owners should worry more about salt than the water itself, especially if boating by the sea. It doesn't matter if you have the most robust axles money can buy; the salt will eat them away one atom at a time.

Pre-Haul Inspection for your Boat Trailer

Before you even think of taking your boat out of your yard this summer, you should first see to it that it won’t just roll over on its side while you’re doing 70mph on the highway. This means inspecting every part of your boat trailer for safety and possible signs of wear.

Wheels and Tires

Of all the trailer parts that you have, the wheels and tires are some of the most vulnerable to wear, and thus, are in need of constant maintenance. To remove the tires, use a lug wrench to remove the lug nuts– then, jack up the trailer and check the wheel hubs. If the studs, bearings and brakes are no longer in good working condition, consider getting them replaced.

Trailer Lights

Trailer lights can be a handful as you may need to check the efficiency of the parts, whether you plan on driving with the trailer attached or not. You should inspect the brake, turning, running, and clearance lights and make sure they are all satisfactorily operating. You can also save yourself some trouble by installing a light bar that you can easily remove as the trailer gets dunked into the water.

Inspect and Adjust

Throughout the drive to the lake or river, or wherever you choose to dip your boat into, make sure to keep adjusting the trailer coupler, bow safety chain, trailer-lights plug, trailer safety chains, bow-winch strap, and transom straps. Doing so will add up to your safety in the long run.

Louisiana Boat Trailers now Exempt from Inspection

A new Louisiana bill has been passed exempting boat trailers from the requirement of periodic and annual inspection of motor vehicles by the DMV. House Bill 347 is sponsored by Rep. Austin J. Bado, who says the boat trailer exemption, which was signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, will take effect August 1.He claims that the stripping of boat trailers from the list is no major inconvenience to government books anyway, so they opted to strike it out from the outset.

Before you heave a sigh of relief, however, you need to remember two things. First: the bill exempts only boat trailers and not other types of trailers, so if you own an ATV or utility trailer, you still need to have that rig inspected. Second: though you won’t need to take your boat trailer for inspection anymore, know that it doesn’t spare you from the responsibility of taking care of your trailer yourself.

When you’re on the road, highway safety is always top priority, and ensuring that your boat trailer is always in good condition is a crucial investment toward this goal. If you plan on taking your boat for fishing this summer, have your trailer inspected by a professional mechanic first, and replace any worn items immediately with brand-new, top-quality trailer parts.

Driving a Boat Onto a Trailer: A Few Points

There are two ways to load a boat onto a trailer from the water: by winch and by driving through the trailer ramp. While both are acceptable methods, there's a lot to be said about driving your boat onto the trailer. For the record, it's not as easy as you think.

Good Aim

You need to aim for the trailer dead center for the driving method to work. It's hard enough to do this in still water; doing it against a fierce current is a nightmare. In the latter's case, boat owners often set up their trailers facing the current so that the boat can be guided safely onto the trailer. Strong winds can also mess up your aim.

Good Rollers

Well-maintained rollers will keep the boat firm and steady as it drives onto the trailer. Otherwise, the boat will simply slide off once you attempt to load it. If you don't check your rollers regularly, resort to the winch method instead. It will save you time, fuel, and the trouble of tantrums from other irate boaters.

Not for Beginners

Driving onto the trailer takes masterful control of the throttle and steering. If this is your first time owning a boat, it's better to get a feel for loading and unloading by the basics. Use a good winch to assist you in launching and retrieving your boat.

Boat Trailer Parts for Efficient Weight Balance

Balance is one of the most important factors in efficient hauling, especially for heavy equipment like boats. Even if the trailer can carry the boat’s weight, it takes efficient weight distribution to keep the vessel from rocking back and forth and getting dislodged from the trailer.

Quality boat trailer axles work by finding stability in numbers. The more axles installed, the less load one axle has to carry throughout the length of the trip. To do this, your boat trailer needs to allow a spread tandem system that puts the axles almost equidistant from each other. Before that, however, here’s a review of how spread tandem axles work.

Stability in Numbers

Widely used in the trucking industry, a spread tandem system features at least two axles that allow better weight distribution. In simple terms, this means that one axle doesn’t have to bear the full weight of the cargo. Spreading the axles far enough also contributes to the distribution; two axles too close together may succumb under the sheer, concentrated weight.

Axle Weight

When shopping for boat trailer axles, you may notice numbers preceding the type of axle listed. This refers to the gross weight the axle can support. Although the axle market provides axles that can support as much as 27,500 lbs, boat trailers only need a maximum of 6,000-lb axles.

Know Your Boat Trailer Winch

At the front of the boat trailer is a winch system that helps load and unload a boat. Obviously, boats are too heavy to be pushed or shoved off, even by a host of strong men. A winch is needed to do this job, pulling with a rating of as much as 2,500 lbs or even higher.

Winch systems come in different variants, and may be classified according to three major components: gear system, crank type, and drum type.

Gear System

Typical gear systems include the single and two-speed gear. The single-speed gear is simple to use—crank and go—and has a load rating of between 400 and 2,100 lbs. The two-speed gear can switch between low and high-speed cranking. The low-speed configuration allows greater loads--between 1,600 and 3,700 lbs--to be pulled with ease.

Crank Type

The standard hand crank is the most versatile type of cranking system for winches. It can work with most gear systems in loading and unloading a boat. A ratchet crank is more portable, but is not recommended for anything other than incline pulling.

Drum Type

The single and split reels are two known drum types. The single reel focuses the pulling power on one line, requiring a sturdy winch strap. A split reel, on the other hand, allows pulling from two directions.