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25-foot boat slides onto roadway

By LIZ BURLINGAME
Whidbey News Times Reporter
Today, 1:07 PM · UPDATED

A Rosborough, Kingfisher II boat blocked a lane of traffic on Clover Valley Road this morning after falling off its hitch.

Owner Mervyn Floyd of South Whidbey was hauling the boat to Cornet Bay in a white, Chevrolet 2500 pick-up truck.

While braked at a stop sign near Ault Field Road, Floyd heard a banging noise and watched as the hooks on the winch broke loose.

"It quietly slipped off," Floyd said. "We used three restraints on it too."

The accident was reported at 9:30 a.m. and Matt Mishler of the Island County Sheriff's Office arrived on scene.

The boat was parked in the roadway for over an hour as a tow truck and winch were called in from Everett.

Floyd said there appeared to be little damage to the boat, only some scrapes on the bottom.

"It's really solid," he said. "A great boat."

No one was injured.
 
another example of a badly written story. did the boat fall off the trailer or did the trailer fall off the hitch??? its sound like the boat came off of the trailer. And where are the picture's? Hey I have been here and done that myself but it was susans fault. Shhhh :wink:
 
It would be very interesting to know what actually happened! What transom tie down was used? Was there a chain and turnbuckle on the bow eye, as well as winch strap?

Hopefully there was not extensive damage.
 
Yes, it is a roller trailer. There is a picture of it in his album.

Having had the pleasure of officiating at the Christening of Merv and Kathy's C-Dory and Rosborough, I'm reminded of the significance of the branch of greenery that we lay on the deck of the vessel to be christened.
That significance being to "ensure safe returns" to land from the sea. It certainly appears to have had a safe return. (Glad we had the "greenery on the deck", Merv.) Additionally, I would suspect that if his twin outboards were transported in the "up" position that they escaped harm. (If so, that is another testament to the plus factor of outboard engines).

Hopefully Merv will log on and let us know how it all turned out.
 
Everybody's nightmare...Merv, trust this has a happy ending, sounds like it.

Owner Mervyn Floyd of South Whidbey was hauling the boat to Cornet Bay in a white, Chevrolet 2500 pick-up truck.

Tell us, how the heck did you get that boat in a Chevy pickup?? And why did the reporter think it was material that the pickup was white??
 
OK. I guess I knew I couldn't hide this one for long :lol:

The boat was attached with safety chain, additional strap on bow and the electric winch (which will not hold much hence the additional strap) plus a strap across the stern.

Problem was caused by movement of the horizontal arm on which the winch is mounted, relative to the vertical (nearly) post to which it is attached. Normally this arm is horizontal but under forward loading it can pivot upwards as it is attached by three bolts which simply compress the sides of the channel onto the vertical post. Easier to see than explain but under braking the boat can actually move forward which loosens the attaching straps which can then "jiggle" off the bow attachment. Net result is next acceleration the only thing holding the boat on the trailer is the stern tie-down. If you happen to be going uphill from a stop sign, that lasts about .005 seconds and you get that evil vision of a boat receding in your rear view mirror.

While waiting for very big recovery vehicle and chatting with the very helpful Sheriff we figured all this out and re-tightened the arm in the horizontal position as tight as was humanly possible without riskng shearing the bolts.

After re-loading the boat (I will publish the whole story later) I moved down the road and stopped to check everything and lo and behold the boat moved forward 6 inches again. So I tightened it in this position and added more restraints so I could make it the 2 miles or so to EQ Marine.

At EQ marine we noticed that the metal plate which attached the vertical post to the trailer is bending under the forward loading of the boat.


Fairly obvious to this poor aeronautical engineer that there are two problems. One is the attachment of the horizontal arm and the other which is potentially more serious is the strength of the post itself. Fortunately we have never made a hard stop while towing because it appears the boat would have joined us in the truck.

EQ will call King to inspect the trailer this week and I would expect that due to the serious implications of a failure like this, they would fix it quick

In the meantime, since a CD25 or a TC255 is nearly the same weight as the RF246 I would suggest y'all take a quick look at your trailers.
Second, I would highly suggest you change any safetu chains or other straps to ones with a spring "guard" as opposed to open hooks. I have already advised the same to RF owners with the same type of trailer.

As far as the boat goes, Dave is right. This has definitively answered the enfine up or down question for me. If they had been down they would have been totalled.
As it is, we appear to have minor cosmetic gelcoat damage to the rear lower edge of the hull extension and to a couple of points on the skeg. They build one tough boat in Nova Scotia.
Not the same for my peace of mind or underwear :shock:

They say bad luck goes in three's. On Friday the gas station broke one of my propane tanks. Saturday the boat came off the trailer.Monday the septic system backed up.

Today I am staying in bed.

I will keep you all up to date and put a full set of pictures in the album as there are a numnber of lessons learned in this story.

Thanks to all for the kind words etc.

Merv & Kathy
 
Have added pictures in Kingfisher album under "Oops".

Kudos to the recovery truck driver he did it very methodically avoiding any secondary damage. It was inch by inch, high pucker factor stuff.

Merv
 
Merv glad to hear you didn't sustain anymore damage and thanks for the tip about the safety chain hook. I had the same thing happen about 15 years ago when a winch cog broke and unloaded a 20' Proline at about 40 MPH. Stupidly I only had it attached with the winch strap as I was only moving the boat about 2 miles. Boat sustained only gel coat scratches and came to rest in a ditch full of water. When the cop came to investigate first thing he asked was for my fishing license! Good luck on getting necessary repairs done I'm going out to examine the winch post on my King trailer before Murphy's Law does.
 
Speaking about trailers...prior to retrieving my boat at the end of this past season I decided to take a wrench and socket to every single bolt/nut on my brand new trailer. 30% of them were not tight and 5 were not even hand tight!

I will say the worst accidents I have seen always involve roller trailers. I mentioned this in another thread but there was a 30' twin engine Grady White sitting on the hard at the top of the ramp this past year. Ouch...
 
Sounds like it might be good to weld things on that winch arm (once it's in the right place) instead of bolting so long as it didn't weaken the assemblies.

This might become known as the "Byrdman Bounce". Where the heck is he anyway??

Charlie
 
It's ironic that I am absolutely paranoid about these attachments.

I even added a carabiner with a screw closing to shorten the safety chain to reduce the amount the boat could move if the other restraints failed. Then I added a heavy duty ratchet tie down as the primary restraint beacuse I know the electric winch can be forced against it's geartrain.

What I did not expect was for the whole darned arm to move !! Now I look at it and it's obvious but I guess that is normal in hindsight.

One good thing about this is we can all learn from it and I have already found others who had similar issues. Lucky this did not happen at 60mph on I5 in rush hour.

Those problems can be easily solved. I am far more concerned about the whole darned boat joining me in the truck and fulfilling the prophesy of the charming young reporter.

Merv
 
To prevent the boat from deciding to ride in the truck, use restraints from the bow eye angling back down to the trailer frame rails, one on each side. These are to restrain forward, upward movement. Chain or very strong nylon strapping can be used.

These restraints were very common on the fast stern drive boat trailers in So Cal. (The boat owners were fast when trailering as well as fast when boating!)
 
Here I am!!! No where near Merv on this one, but for sure feel his pain. We have talked on the phone and shared a few emails too. Must be a year for trailer issues. Thanks for the King trailer alert...and look forward to hearing King's fix recommendations.

I have another C-Brat friend who bought a new CD25 and a "custom fit" Magic-Tilt trailer, all as a brand new rig.

Ya'll with Magic-Tilt trailers and CD25s may want to check the clearance distances between the top inside edge of the trailer tires, and the fender boards on the trailer. :wink

The fix was new, longer axles that gave the popper clearance that should have been there since day one. Took some time, nobody got hurt (which is the most important thing)....and the trailer was fixed.

The clearance issue only occurred when the boat weight and road ruffness/bounce caused the sidewalls of the tires to flex (as they should....)...but the flex then caused the rub....a very slow, very light rub that took some time to show itself....and was on the inside edge of the tire(s...all 4 of them).... :cry

Now, just how many of us get under our trailers and check the inside edges of our tires??? :smileo So... get behind your trailer and look forward .....

Thankfully, this was found when loading the boat at the ramp, once the boat weight hit the trailer, one of four tires went flat. The other 3 tires were replaced....and had the bad rubs too. Just like Merv....no real forward speed was good and no boat slung cross folks traveling around.

Pay attention to how tight some bolts are on the trailer.....Most have a proper torque amount...which allows for the trailer parts to move/work properly..... Not all are to be forced down tight. We must all read our manuals on our trailers.... Good time of year to do that stuff.

Merv, Sorry Brother.... keep me posted as you have been.

Byrdman
 
Merv,
Thanks so much for volunteering to do the testing that showed up the weak links in trailer design. Your confidence in the extremely tough build of the Rosborough is shown in your chosen method of testing! :lol: Seriously, glad to hear that there is very little other than cosmetic damage to the boat, and especially to you. Once the cosmetic stuff is repaired it will be just another learning experience that prevents an even worse scenario from happening. Can you imagine if you had to make an emergency stop on the freeway and the boat was loose. OMG!
Thanks for sharing the information and letting us all benefit from your misfortune.
All the best in getting everything fixed and back in the water.
Ron
 
Ron,

The engineers in my company always hate it when I walk into the labs. Bad things happen to units that have passed every known form of test. Good way to get out of engineering into management where you are expected to mess things up.

I am sure that there are lots of trailer designs that have similar post arrangements so I am not shooting at King. They are a reputable company and hopefully will take this kind of feedback as an opportunity to enhance their product without all the doom and gloom of a major accident.

Larry,
Thanks for the suggestion, that's a real good idea.

It's going to take a while before either of us feel real happy about towing again.

And before anyone pick up on it there is no connection other than Murphy between this event and the backed up septic :disgust That all got shovelled out of the truck on the scene :shock:

Merv
 
Grumpy,

Years ago, I tied the rear of a 22' sailboat down with motorcycle tiedowns. These saved my rear in Mexico, when the trailer broke loose, rolled down the hill and tried to launch the boat over a wall. The winch cable broke, but the tiedowns held. I continued to use them, even though they're only 1 1/2 inch wide.

So now on Journey On, I use a 3" strap across the rear, and assume it'll hold. Assume is the key part. What did you use for tiedowns and where were they attached?

Boris
 
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