Boat Trailer Recommended Tongue Weights
The weight that the tongue of your boat trailer transfers to the back of your vehicle affects the way your car or truck handles. Too much, and your front wheels no longer have enough weight on them; your steering becomes light and ineffective. Too little, and your boat and trailer may try to drag your vehicle all over the road as boat and trailer fishtail from left to right to left and back again.
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Trailer Weight Plus Boat Weight
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When you begin to figure how much weight to put on the tongue of your trailer, you need to know the combined weight of your boat and trailer. Knowing the trailer weight alone doesn't work, because you'll have the combined weight on the trailer's axles and exerting an influence on the wheels of your car or truck. Knowing the boat's weight alone doesn't work since, although the trailer is transferring all of the weight of the boat to the ground, the trailer has mass as well.
Combined Weight Under 2,000 Lbs.
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If the combined weight of the trailer and boat is 2,000 lbs. or less, your trailer's tongue weight shouldn't exceed 200 lbs. One way to get a quick estimate is to hook your trailer and boat to your car. If the rear end of the car squats more than 1 inch, transfer the goods in the boat toward the stern of the boat. If the rear end squats less than 1 inch, move the goods in the boat forward to transfer weight to the hitch.
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Combined Weight Over 2,000 Lbs.
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For vehicles over 2,000 lbs., U-Haul, a provider of moving trailers, says that the tongue weight shouldn't exceed 10 to 15 percent of the gross trailer weight. The quickest way to determine the gross trailer weight is to find a truck scale, perhaps at a scrap yard or at a truck stop, and pull the vehicle, trailer and boat onto the scale, unhitch the trailer and move the vehicle from the scale to obtain the GTW. Once you have that figure, multiply it by 0.1 or 0.15 to calculate the ideal tongue weight.
Weighing the Tongue
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You can weigh the tongue by setting a block of wood onto a bathroom scale, then setting the tongue of the trailer on top of the block of wood. Again, you'll need to move stuff around inside the boat if the weight registered on the scale is more than the weight of the trailer, multiplied by 0.1 or 0.15, or you'll need to shift the trailer's axles more toward the rear of the boat.
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