Every once in awhile it is good to hear a story like this to recalibrate your safety concerns, so I thought I would share. Also, while searching the forum, I noticed some debate on using bow eye safety chains and thought this may change some minds.
Yesterday, when I got home from a 45 min. drive from the river I noticed the boat was not sitting on the trailer correctly. The bow was off the rollers and about 8 inches in front of them. The spring that holds the winch locked failed allowing the winch to freespin. By the way, the winch is less than a year old. The safety chain is the only thing that kept the boat from possibly coming all the way off the trailer on the road. Now some people are probably saying, what about the transom straps? I had both straps on tight but one was off and the other loose when I found it. My thoughts are that once the boat was allowed to move around the shifting position of the boat allowed the straps to unhook. (i.e. when the boat shifted to the starboard and forward the tie down point of the boat was closer to the tie down point of the trailer allowing the strap to become loose and unhook)
Moral of the story, use safety chains and transom straps. Don't rely on bow strap and transom straps alone. I am very thankful I hadn't.
My question is what length do you set your safety chain to? I am not happy that the boat was allowed to move as much as it did and will be shortening the chain up today while I replace the winch.
Sorry for poor pic quality, not great at uploading pics here. Had to reduce size.
Thanks,
Dan
Yesterday, when I got home from a 45 min. drive from the river I noticed the boat was not sitting on the trailer correctly. The bow was off the rollers and about 8 inches in front of them. The spring that holds the winch locked failed allowing the winch to freespin. By the way, the winch is less than a year old. The safety chain is the only thing that kept the boat from possibly coming all the way off the trailer on the road. Now some people are probably saying, what about the transom straps? I had both straps on tight but one was off and the other loose when I found it. My thoughts are that once the boat was allowed to move around the shifting position of the boat allowed the straps to unhook. (i.e. when the boat shifted to the starboard and forward the tie down point of the boat was closer to the tie down point of the trailer allowing the strap to become loose and unhook)
Moral of the story, use safety chains and transom straps. Don't rely on bow strap and transom straps alone. I am very thankful I hadn't.
My question is what length do you set your safety chain to? I am not happy that the boat was allowed to move as much as it did and will be shortening the chain up today while I replace the winch.
Sorry for poor pic quality, not great at uploading pics here. Had to reduce size.
Thanks,
Dan
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