Backing Up Trailers and Marriage…..

If you want to experience great drama and high stakes and love the outdoors, stop your binge watching of Dexter on Hulu or your favorite reality TV show and simply stop by your local boat launch and watch marriages begin to dissolve.

Not all boat ramps are this nice!

People go to great lengths to enjoy the outdoors and yet the dark curse of backing up a trailer at a busy boat launch on a Saturday morning has tested many a marriage.  Being in the garden construction business for over 40 years, I have a lot of experience backing up our enclosed trailers which measure more than 24′ in length.  I would like to think I can back up our big trailers in a straight line at 20 miles an hour and park in in between Ming vases.

I would rather back up a big trailer than a short one.

The untold secret to newbie trailer owners is that size does indeed matter when backing up a trailer.  I would rather back up a 30′ trailer in Manhattan traffic than back up a twelve foot long jet ski trailer at a desolate Wisconsin boat ramp.  Trailers turn much quicker when they are short because the pivot point is very short and more responsive to any turn of your wheel.

The typical conversation at a boat ramp between husband and wife starts off nice enough.  The wife will get out of the car and say “Alright dear, I am ready to back you up”.  And then the trouble begins as the wife is now standing in front of the vehicle and says calmly “Turn to your right”  which is of course the opposite of the way the husband is facing.  The husband turns the trailer to HIS right and the wife yells “Stop” as their trailer comes within inches inserting a nice long gash in the gorgeous gelcoat of a $60,000 Ski Nautique boat.

After a group discussion, which required a couple of minutes of determining right and left and repeated attempts to back up while almost jack knifing the trailer and bending the trailer hitch, the wife walks away with her hands in the air muttering “Idiot!”and the husband mutters “I told you I could do this myself”.  The wife says “What did you say?”  The husband responds, “Nothing dear, I was just saying how nice you looked today”.

The last scenario is actually mild compared to some of the events we have watched unfold at boat ramps.  I am going to share two actual stories that make me shake my head ’til this day.

When I was attending Iowa State University I was working at a sporting goods store and the owner would occasionally take me along with the family to go water skiing on the local lake.  A lake that apparently was dug out of a cornfield and was just long enough to pull the skier out of the water before you had to turn again.  The boat ramp at this lake was steep and the ramp a little slimy.

We had pulled his boat out of the water and were making sure it was secure before we hit the road home when this gorgeous renovated 50’s Ford pickup pulled in with a small 16′ ski boat on a trailer.

They had unhooked the tie down straps from the boat and successfully backed the boat down the ramp and into the lake.  All was good.  And then the owner stepped out of the truck while it was on the ramp to unhook the trailer winch from the bow of the boat and that is when his truck popped out of gear.

He had turned his truck off and put the manual transmission into gear, but had failed to set the emergency brake.  He stood in the water and watched as the trailer and truck rolled back into the water. The boat now looked like it was sitting in the bed of the truck as the water was just over the rolled down window in the door.

Now either this boat owner was in shock or was not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, because he got in the truck and attempted to turn the engine over…….that only happened once.  They had to call a tow truck to pull the truck and trailer out of the water, get the boat secured on the trailer  and then drag it home with its engine tucked in between it’s legs in shame.

Now you don’t have to have a trailer to have a challenge transporting your boats.  Make sure you test load your boats onto your new roof rack and that your roof rack securely attaches to your roof.

When we lived in Pennsylvania we had a van and a Thule roof rack for kayaks.  Even at 6’4″ and my wife at 5’7″ is wasn’t always easy to load the van at the end of a long day’s paddle. But we had a system and it worked great.

One day paddling at FE Walter dam in Northeast Pennsylvania, we pulled our boats out of the water and rested for a minute on the beach.  We saw a couple trying to put their kayaks on their roof rack to no avail.  We hauled our boats up to our van and got them safely secured and then I asked the other couple if I could help them out.

Exasperated, they welcomed the help and the relationship arbitration, as you could tell they were on each other’s last nerve.  It was their first time kayaking and they just couldn’t figure out how to tie down their kayaks on their very nice Thule roof rack.  I guess they forgot how they loaded them in the morning or maybe they came directly from purchasing the boats.  I quickly explained how the ratchets worked on the tie down straps and another marriage was saved.

The Triton Kayak/Canoe/Bike Trailer is versatile and lightweight.

We recently purchased a Triton trailers kayak/canoe/bike trailer and one of the reasons we bought the trailer is the ease of which we can load and unload our canoe and kayak. And if you can master the art of trailering and loading and unloading your boats, you too can have a happy marriage.