Boats do great in the water but usually don’t function so well on land, and trucks gobble up miles of interstate but are often single-use submersibles when used on large bodies of water. As such, the two enjoy a symbiotic relationship of sorts. You can put a truck on a ferry to move it across a lake, and you can strap a boat on a trailer and pull it behind a truck. Unfortunately, getting the boat on the trailer requires human input, and that’s where things can run amok. This clip is going viral on the “Idiots Towing Things” subreddit, and it’ll make you realize that there’s more than one wrong way to tow a boat out of the water at the boat launch.
In a way, it’s easy to understand why so many videos of towing mistakes are out there. It’s not a subject typically taught well in driver’s ed, and adding more wheels, more mass, a coupling, and an articulation point to whatever you’re driving is going to result in a vastly different experience than just driving a car. What makes this incident so incredible is that the fail starts before the load is even really on the trailer, and accelerates when the Ram 1500 tow vehicle hits the gas.
Normally, once you have your trailer in the water and the boat roughly in place on the trailer, you hook up the winch, crank that thing down, then add safety chains so it can’t go anywhere. Something tells me that possibly didn’t happen here, as evidenced by whatever train of thought led to a guy hooking his legs inside the bow and holding onto the tailgate of the truck in what appears to be an attempt to keep the boat in place.
Probably should have put the hook on it
byu/terribleazn inIdiotsTowingThings
On the face of things, this doesn’t seem like a brilliant idea. After all, winch lines and safety chains are rated for hundreds, even thousands of pounds. The average person probably isn’t rated to hold the same amount of weight. Indeed, 15 seconds into the video, premonitions become reality as our human safety chain slips free of the boat and receives a Knoxville and Co.-tier nutshot from the trailer winch.
In case that didn’t seem unfortunate enough, things get worse. Unsurprisingly, as the truck continues to drive forward, the boat keeps sliding backward on the trailer, achieving a full dismount right as the boat launch gets shallow. Buddy’s still hanging onto the tailgate of the Ram for dear life, and I can only imagine that whatever mass of tarpaulin is in the bed of that truck has a serious effect on rearward visibility.
Mercifully, the driver of the Ram stops after realizing that the boat is now resting on the ground, and that’s when the arguing starts. While the audio’s fairly quiet, a few exasperated hand gestures are enough to get the gist of what’s going on here. Maybe the strategy of “No, fuck it, just peel out” shouted right as everything starts to go wrong wasn’t the right call.
In a way, I get it. Loading a boat trailer can be a huge ass-pain, even with two people. Lining everything up, winching, locking things down, it’s not quite as easy as say, hitching up a small trailer you can pull around with your hands. However, taking shortcuts doesn’t always end well, and best practices exist for a reason. So, the next time you find yourself backing your tow rig down the boat launch, just be safe, yeah?
Top graphic image: Reddit
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Does the “FL” in that boat reg number indicate that this took place in Florida? If so, color me shocked…
Videos like this remind me that these are the skills that are cheaper to learn on someone else’s equipment.
I was a “teacher” at a sailing camp back in middle and high school. We launched and retrieved ballasted sailboats up to 24’ off a marine growth and sand ramp daily for a couple weeks every summer with a succession of unmuffled 440 powered 1970s dodge vans. The oldest guy there was 20.
Somehow we never lost a boat, trailer, or vehicle. I did dent a roof or two by not catching the boat masts as they were let down.
I’ll never forget the sound of those vans winding out all the way in first gear as they climbed the hill back to the school buildings stuffed with 20-some unbelted elementary school kids.
Later I remember launching skiffs out of truck beds by backing down the ramp until the tailgates were under water and shoving the skiffs in and out of the bed. I also remember blowing a rear differential a couple months later and the fluid looking like chocolate milk…
I was at the beach over the weekend watching folks launch fishing boats directly from the sand because the boat ramps were too busy. Sadly, I didn’t stick around to watch them try to recover the boats, but I’m sure I missed out on quite the show.
I carry ratchet straps in my GR86 (and that’s besides the ones in a storage box on the utility trailer), so I really don’t understand this kind of lack of preparedness from morons towing with a pickup. Besides that, every single choice they made was a wrong one with human-chaining being particularly inspired, the kind of solution that takes a rare depth of stupidity to even come up with. Who feeds people like these?
McDonald’s and Jack Daniels I’d guess.
No kidding. I don’t tow any boats, but my pickup has probably 20 ratchet straps of varying sizes in it, with another 10 in my car trailer.
Never know when you’ll be driving along and see something for sale that you want but need to strap down to haul. 😉
I don’t know why more people don’t carry them. They come in handy for all kinds of unexpected situations, they’re cheap, take up little space, and last a long time.
dude’s nuts literally decapitated themselves on the trailer and he walked away unscathed??? must be married
Adrenaline+public embarrassment is quite the pain suppressor.
At least he didn’t turn
I got that reference. Bonus points.
You can see ”why” they went this route in the video. Winch line broke. About a foot is still dangling from the bow. That said, you are at a boat ramp in a campground. There are literally dozens of options all around you to throw a temporary line on it to safely get it out of the water, at which point you can then find proper tie downs or replace your winch line.
I used a ratchet strap for years, as my trailer didn’t have a winch.
MOAR STINGER VIDEOS
😉
Workin on it!
But that requires logic and critical thinking skills.
Random side note….my dad was near supernatural in his ability to understand exactly how far to get any boat trailer into the water to exactly match the draft line needed to run the boat on without having to winch. Seriously, every time he would set the trailer and get the boat to exact throttle to slide on effortlessly, touching but never striking the front bump stop. Get out, clip the winch line, crank a tiny bit until taught and drive away. Was amazing to watch.
And upon second review….he probably would have been fine had they not backed up more initially in the video. Boat was far enough out it likely would have stayed on enough to get out (obviously not advised and definitely not safe to head down the road with). But floating it that extra time and then gunning it gave them no chance….
Was about to post something to this effect. I don’t understand why they felt the need to 1)refloat the boat and 2) floor it out of the water. Had they just pulled slow and steady they probably would have been fine. Could have even thrown it in 4Lo for extra traction…… must have had one too many cold snacks on the lake.
For the clicks!
Seemed like it was a bit set up to me too.
That would require planning this out so it was catastrophic enough to get those sweet sweet clicks but not so much as to cause serious injury. Also busting up a boat and I’m guessing ruining that prop. You may be right, I just really hope people aren’t that dumb.
I’m confident that *some* people are that dumb. I’ve seen social media.
I love the optimism of the human bungee cord. After total disaster, he is unbowed: “Back it up!” The tug on the back of the boat like he is going to wrangle back on the trailer by himself is next level.
This a no joke… a friend of mine lost a nut in a mishap a few weeks ago.
Was it a 10mm?
When I received fork lift training many, many years ago, one of the big warnings was to never try to catch a falling crate. You may think you can, but you can’t.
That and the cage is there for a reason. You may want to bail when that pallet of bottled water you were getting down starts falling towards you but under the rollcage the most you’ll get is wet. A few steps away, all bets are off.
Similar to the restaurant adage of never try to catch something falling that was just in the oven.
And never catch a dropped knife.
A falling knife has no handle.
Knew I had seen this one before. Broncos Guru posted this one about a year ago. And it is a longer clip.
Oh man that makes this all so much worse lol. I still love that it literally was out of the water and they said “nah, ef it”
I was hoping for a longer clip, and this made it even better, was the winch broke? nope worked just fine once they pushed the boat back in the water haha
Holy Carp!!!! They actually had an intact winch strap and STILL tried to do it the stupid way??!!!
As the narrator says: Don’t loan your boat to idiots. Evidently this was not their boat. This explains a lot.
Somewhere, out of the frame, an individual is still holding white t-shirt guy’s beer.
I recommend re-naming their boat.
The “USS Nutcracker” maybe?
…and of COURSE the driver is shirtless!
I’ve launched and landed my boat about a thousand times. Never once did I ever give it that much throttle.
I once did a burnout up a boat ramp but I claim there were contributing factors. It was my first time driving my buddy’s truck (first gen Superduty M/T w/ 7.3 diesel), but I had a first gen Superduty A/T with the 5.4. I can competently drive a manual but wasn’t familiar with his or the torque curve so I thought I needed to be more aggressive on the throttle than I did, particularly with the weight of a wake board boat behind me. I did the normal give it a bit of throttle while releasing the clutch and the wheels broke loose and, in spite of feathering-off the throttle the wheels didn’t catch up till we were up the ramp.
Still, I got to be “that guy” at the boat ramp. Fortunately I was quickly overshadowed by the guys who lost a trailer axle before we were done wiping the boat down…
Was he holding that cigarette at the same time he was trying to hold onto the tailgate?
This is what happens when your family tree has no branches…and/or Floridian.
Boat ramp fail videos are a guilty pleasure of mine. I’m pretty good at backing trailers so I can relish in the schadenfreude.
I haven’t seen anyone ever use safety chains on a boat that size though. Normally the hand winch on the front of the trailer (which locks) is enough to hold the boat on the trailer, otherwise a nylon strap or two connecting the back of the boat to the trailer (that you’d put on AFTER you’ve pulled the boat out of the water) is what most people use.
Same. They’re an underappreciated art form.
Yeah, I was going to say the same: usually the winch alone is fine to get it up to the parking lot, then strap down the back as you’re wiping down the boat.
Unless the ramp is exceedingly steep, I’ve not seen people chain the front of the boat other than just the winch.
Yeah, Florida boat ramp fails and videos from Haulover are entirely too prominent in my history…
Amphicar is the answer here.
I had a limnology professor in graduate school that did all his lake work out of an Amphicar.
I think “Fuck it, just peel out” should be our new motto for the State of Florida. We may as well lean into it at this point, right?
Wait, is it not already?
Toe* no!
It looks like the winch line was hooked up at one point but is now dangling from the boat. Given how the boat was all the way up against the winch at the start of the video, I’m guessing the video missed their first fail of cranking on the winch until it broke?
James Mason linked a longer clip of this. They had an intact winch and strap, but were too lazy to use it the first time. It was supposedly not their boat, so they didn’t care so much.
I love every part about this video. The boat was FLOATING for gods sake
Wait… they were trying to pull the boat out??? I thought the PEEL OUUUUUT was to help launch the boat. My god…
The word for getting the boat into the water is “launch” but what is the official single word for getting the boat onto the trailer and out of the water? “recover”?? “load” just seems off. What is the official word??
“Unlaunch”.
“land” the boat
on a boat trailer. it just sounds strange.
Stranger than “de-plane?”
For these guys? “Nutpunch”
I once started videoing a guy driving slowly through the water with the trailer still attached, like “what a drunk idiot!”
Then he turns into his three-boat garage and ramp behind his $2MM lake house and I realized that’s actually how people get their new boats to/from the local public ramp and their personal garage or boathouse. Facepalm.
This, on the other hand — this is “WHY DID YOU TURN?!” for boats.
I really want to say there has to be a better way, but I can’t think of one… Knowing that trailer is going to spend the rest of its life a) moving up and down the boat driveway or b) going to be sold with the boat after a season and well before any ill effects of two dunkings; it’s kind of an elegantly simple solution…
It’s really a great way to keep boats out of the water, especially if you don’t have a full boathouse (some lakes don’t allow them depending on local restrictions). A lot of our lakes here in AL have boat garages on land, which is far more commonly than boathouses at the end of the dock. The really swanky boat garages have doors on both sides so you can just back it into the garage from the street side and not worry about doing it through the water.
I’m only a casual boater, just lake-adjacent enough to know I don’t want any part of that money pit 🙂
I was picturing lake houses that were either on narrow lots (to maximize lakefront lots) or with too much landscaping or trees to get a trailer to the lakeside of the house.
On a sidenote; at the nearest “lake life” lake to me a lot of the people with the nice lakefront homes have restored antique tractors who’s sole purpose is towing their boats to/from their boat garages and the shore…
Huh, I’ll file that under “things you’d think are wrong, but I sure can’t figure out the right way”.
Kind of a clever hack honestly.
I worked with a guy whose family had a cottage on a large island. Their old boat was no longer worth fixing, but they wanted the trailer on the island for general hauling around behind an ATV duties. He was trying to figure out how to get the cumbersome trailer over when we suggested leaving it strapped to the boat and either motoring or towing it over then call a boat scrapper or put a free sign on the boat and be done with the ordeal.
My relatives needed to do some work on their island-on-a-lake property, so they bought a backhoe and drove it across the ice one winter, did the work that summer, and drove it back to mainland and sold it the next winter…
As someone who works on the water and launches boats personally and professionally, I have seen lots of stuff at public ramps, to include:
-Someone forgetting to put the E-brake on and losing their truck to the ramp
-Someone jackknifing their trailer in the ramp, flipping the trailer over, snapping off the ball.
-A hitch pin failing, with the safety chains right behind it.
-A group of hunters, at 330am, fixing a broken motor while tied up to the ramp, with all of the nuts/plugs/wrenches in the engine cover on the floating dock. Their labrador retriever, anxious to do something/anything to help, promptly knocked the cover into the river, where it sank. They went home.
-An impatient person backing down the ramp, over a kayak at the waters edge.
I have never seen this, this is a first.
2 weeks ago my buddy and I had our canoes on the edge of the water and I was about to drive up the ramp and park and this guy just rushes down the ramp and misses our kayaks by inches and blocks me from going up the ramp to get out of his way. PIA.
Like the safety chains were connected, but also failed? That just sounds like bad luck.
Depending on exactly how/when it failed and how much they cheaped out on the safety chains, it makes a lot of sense. Pin failed, sudden jerk on the safety chains that probably weren’t rated for that much force, they fail. People often use much lighter/weaker chains than they should, usually because they don’t account for the idea that the weight suddenly falling back will exert extra force.
One reason why fall arrest anchorages are so heavy, it’s the dynamic load that is a killer.
Dynamic load! Thank you!. I was not coming up with the proper term and gave up thinking about it.
300 lb static load is nothing. The impact is the killer.
Tide way out + Steep Ramp + Salt water + Rust = SNAP
poor dog, I hope he didn’t get punished for it.
nope, it was a “stunned silence” while they packed up and left
Yeah I guess they knew it was a lost cause.
My stepdad almost lost his truck on the ramp. It rolled back but somehow even with the rear starting to float the front tires still had enough grip for him to roll forward when he jumped back in. There was an old timer at the ramp just chuckling like he had seen it all many times before.
An old boss of mine bought a small aluminum boat. Like, a 15′ jon boat. Then he bought the biggest motor he could find/afford in the local classifieds. It was something like a 75 hp outboard, and he bolted that sucker on!
The first time he tried to launch it, he backed it onto the public boat ramp. This was an intracoastal waterway, so at the end of the ramp, the water was quite deep.
So be backed the trailer right to the end of the ramp, then unclipped the cable from the trailer.
The boat went nearly vertical as the motor dragged it straight to the bottom.
There is a reason for the max power and weight labels on a boat.
Yup. That played out pretty much how I expected.