Which tow vehicle for every day use?

blued

Lum wrote: »

Might be worth going fishing at this problematic slipway and observing or talking to other people launching boats and the vehicles they use?

There are probably only half a dozen people who use the slipway regularly. Those with lighter boats wheel them in the last bit and from memory the others use 4x4 pickups of some variety.

vaio wrote: »

Yep, or look at the four wheel drive A4/A6 Audi.

As for clearance for reversing into the water, we used to have a rib and fitted a mini wheel & hub just behind the hitch. This made it easy to wheel about so we used to launch by wheeling the trailer into the sea and recover the same way but using rope between the car & trailer to avoid dipping the audi in the sea.

Suppose it depends on the weight of your boat

The boat weighs around 1200kg on the trailer so wheeling it about isn't an option unfortunately. Getting it back on the trailer is also easier when it is attached to the car. The mini wheel is a good idea though, I saw something similar on a jetski trailer once.

Notmyrealname

What about modifying the tow hitch, putting it on a square bar with holes and a pin in so you can lengthen it when you want to reverse into the water?

blued

I have a 3 metre extension bar with towbar on one end and hitch on the other. It is good for recovering but no good for reversing because it can move about at the trailer end. Ideally I need a way to make it stay rigid at the trailer end without adding parts to it that would prevent it being able to be strapped to the trailer under the boat for transporting.

blued

Your extension bar sounds like a good idea I wonder what it would take to fabricate and if it could be fitted to a car?

andrew-the-cat

blued wrote: »

Can you really get 30mpg round the town in a discovery? Do they not suffer from corrosion as well?

I considered the Allroad but 21mpg and suspension is expensive if it fails.

I'll check out the Volvo.

Cheers .

Anything with air suspension will be expensive if it fails unfortunately. However it's a very nice feature to have when towing heavy loads, and helps when you need to use rough surfaces as you can just raise the ride height. The XC70 also has air suspension.

hartcjhart

have you thought about attatching the winch strap to the car and letting it down the slipway like that also works for recovery,thats what we used to do

blued

That's the problem with the slip you're pretty much at the end of it before you hit the water! Then it is flat with shingle and stones which becomes impossible to push the boat on as it is too heavy. I used to get someone to hold the bar while I pushed it further with the car but even then if the water was low it would still be a struggle to get it in.

blued

So you can see what I'm dealing with, although the water was lower than normal when these were taken. You can just see the end of the slip in the first one so a 4x4 car without decent clearance won't do and pushing it from the bottom of the slip is also not really an option...

Lum

That second picture just reminded me of this classic series of pictures..



Sorry I don't actually have anything useful to add to the thread.

Notmyrealname

blued wrote: »

Your extension bar sounds like a good idea I wonder what it would take to fabricate and if it could be fitted to a car?

It'd need to be on the trailer otherwise it'd be a nightmare to reverse. Length of square box section several inches longer than you want to extend. Weld tow hitch on to one end. Drill big hole horizontally all the way through it 4" in from both ends.

Where the original two hitch was you'd need to weld in a 6" long length of box section big enough to go over the first and at a position where the long bit could slide in and out to its full length. Again drill a hole in the middle.

How you'd use it in normal towing is you'd have it pushed all the way in with a big pin going through the holed to lock it in place. When you want to reverse it down the sliproad and want the extra length then pull the pin out and slide the bar forward until the rear holes line up and then put the pin back in. To make it easier to move you could even put the trailer brake on, take the pin out and then drive forward to pull it out. Weld a stop on the end so you don't pull it all the way out.