Position on trailer

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Saltyone

GreatGrady Captain
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Location
St Helens, OR
Model
Express 265
Was looking at the boat sitting on the trailer, to me it looks like it might be sitting back a bit to far.

Where should the bunks be in relation to the trim tabs?

Up to the leading edge, or right underneath them?20230319_171016.jpg
 
I want my bunks an inch or two beyond the transom, and missing the tabs, in case I forget to put them up. Have always had transom mounted tabs, unlike your situation.
Position on the trailer, and tongue weight, are another issue.
 
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Actual distance from bunk to tab is not all that important. The critical factor is whether the hull is sitting the correct position for it's center of weight and that relates directly to the tongue weight number ( assuming the trailer is sized correctly.
 
I disagree, I think conventional wisdom is to support the hull all the way to the transom. It looks like about 16 inches hanging out over the rear, probably with a couple of v6's beyond that, bouncing down the road, putting a lot of stress on the transom to hull to stringers connection.
My guess is that whoever set up the trailer had avoiding the tabs as a higher priority than fully supporting the hull. If you have auto-retract to raise the tabs when the key is off, it should not be an issue.
 
glacierbaze said:
I disagree, I think conventional wisdom is to support the hull all the way to the transom. It looks like about 16 inches hanging out over the rear, probably with a couple of v6's beyond that, bouncing down the road, putting a lot of stress on the transom to hull to stringers connection.
My guess is that whoever set up the trailer had avoiding the tabs as a higher priority than fully supporting the hull. If you have auto-retract to raise the tabs when the key is off, it should not be an issue.
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Your conventional wisdom comment is correct. However, in this case, I believe he's only about an inch or two from the transom which is close enough as makes no difference. The rest of what we see are trim tabs. Or at least that's how it appears, anyways. If it's trailering well at highway speeds and reacts well to an emergency lane change maneuver, including under braking - all good.
 
The trim tabs are directly under the transom, so yes the bunks are quite a bit back from the edge of the transom.

I think I'm going to adjust it about 6 inches or so forward.
 
Looking at your picture, it appears you only have an inch or two till you get to the edge of the transom and the start of the tabs mounting plate/hinge. Your tabs are in a "pocket", right? The "rest" of the transom doesn't matter at all. All that matters is what sits on the bunks. Going more than than that one or two inches will serve no benefit. You could move the winch stand that one or two inches, but any more than that serves only to increase your tongue weight.
 
I guess I don't understand what I'm seeing in that picture. It looks to me like the transom is back where you see that transducer mounted which is quite a ways.
 
I do not position bunks so that they are farther back than the trim tabs. On pocketed tab design, that means the bunks should be positioned a foot to two feet back from the transom.
As I probably said earlier, the position is not as critical as the location of the center of load (within reason)
 
I think you do need to check the tongue weight. Extreme case is boat sits so far back the tongue weight is close to zero and can lift the rear of the vehicle in a bump....... too heavy a weight can lift front wheels off the ground........
Also check that axles are loaded about the same, are all the tires compacted equally? At same psi.
seeing that you have a 265 indicates you have a heavy vehicle so it may not heave it that much but it certainly can change its behavior.

You often see car carriers with just one vehicle onboard that is located at the back of the carrier, that is for load balancing.

H
 
1679842937833.png

2000 26' Grady-White 265 Express​

The tab is not in a pocket, the actuator is. You can call the shallow recess where the tab sits a pocket if you want. The point is, on the OP's boat, he has 9 or 10 inches of tab, at least 3 inches of hinge, and 2 or 3 inches of glass before he gets to the end of the bunk, leaving that much of the hull unsupported.
 
glacierbaze said:

​

glacierbaze said:

2000 26' Grady-White 265 Express​

The tab is not in a pocket, the actuator is. You can call the shallow recess where the tab sits a pocket if you want. The point is, on the OP's boat, he has 9 or 10 inches of tab, at least 3 inches of hinge, and 2 or 3 inches of glass before he gets to the end of the bunk, leaving that much of the hull unsupported.
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Look closer at where the bunk is aligned - it's aligned with the pocket (which is part of the transom). There is no (purposeful) room to have the bunk extended further aft. The pocket is a very strong part of the transom.

He MAY be able to slide the bunks further inwards to avoid the pocket, but that will depend a couple other factors.. and it may end up putting the bunks too far inwards. But simply moving the boat forward will do nothing.

Being at the "beginning" of the pocket is absolutely fine. The pocket is a very strong section of the transom.

In the picture you provided, the extended bunk serves no structural purpose.

Since the tab is flush with the bottom of the boat, there is the option of only having to move the bunk inwards a tiny bit to partially get under the rearmost-part of the transom. But then he runs the risk of damaging the tab and/or transom if it's still partially deployed. Best practice is to NOT have a bunk under a tab.

To further substantiate the premise that the bunk is fine where it is... the boat is nearly a quarter century old and I see ZERO evidence of any hook or deformation in the hull bottom. Of course, this is making an assumption that it's been on a trailer like this the whole time. But I would expect it to be fine given the strength of the area that the bunk is sitting under.
 
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A couple of the reasons I happened to look at this. When hooked up to the truck, the rear most tires seemed to have more weight on them. I was actually looking at getting a lower drop hitch. But then this last weekend, I was replacing the winch strap and when I unhooked the old one with the boat on the trailer, the front of the boat lifted up, like there wasn't enough support at the rear.

Which made me think I probably need to move the winch stand forward so the boat is more supported at the rear and move a bit more weight forward. I'll have to measure the tongue weight to see where it's at.
 
Like someone said, all about tounge weight, also the trailer will flex more the further back you go so loading will get more interesting. Do not move it so far back to make the trailer flex up.
 
Saltyone said:
But then this last weekend, I was replacing the winch strap and when I unhooked the old one with the boat on the trailer, the front of the boat lifted up, like there wasn't enough support at the rear.
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You're overthinking that part. The rear of the boat is fully supported. That line of thinking is not what is causing what you saw - that's a relatively common thing to see. It's just the way the boat is sitting on the trailer and trailer flex. What you could do, though, is move the winch up so the line pull is more in a straight line. A little bit down is fine, though -but the bow eye SHOULD BE locked in under the bow roller.

Now, that said, yes, you may not have enough tongue weight - but measure it like you're planning on. That the way to know for sure. You should have about 7% of the total weight, give or take. OR... post a good profile picture of the rig.

Drop hitch... for the brakes to work properly the trailer tongue should be parallel with the ground when it's hooked up to the truck.
 
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To give you a piece of mind that is exactly how my 265 sits on my trailer. I had the trailer built for the boat. Whenever I loosen the strap the bow lifts, very minimally.... you are overthinking it. Enjoy the boat, she likes to go fast!
 
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SkunkBoat said:
hehehehe Good luck with that. IMO the 265 is not a trailer boat. I pay the guy to come wih a giant hydraulic trailer
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Yes, and no. If you have the correct setup it's like towing anything else (EOH brakes and a Ram 2500 6.7l Cummins). I rarely feel the boat back there when towing out here in California and we have to go up and over steep grades to get to the ocean. The only issue I've had was going across the Golden Gate Bridge, it has fairly narrow lanes but then again I have a massive boat behind me....I just took the space I needed.

Trailer for sure has it's downsides but also has a whole lot of upside as well. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a slip!
 
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