These guys log some long highway trips and they have to arrive in time for the starting gun.įlorida pro angler Ron Klys competes in bass tournaments around the Southeast, pulling his rig up and down many an Interstate and country back road. You can bet that pro tournament anglers carry plenty of spare parts for their heavier boat trailers. Photo taken next day with new Buddy bearing. When tire came off at high speed, road surface damaged the hub’s outer edge. All you can do is employ regular trailer maintenance, cursory checks of the trailer before getting on the road and at the boat ramp, and carry a box of spare trailer parts. However, a good record won't stop a fiasco tomorrow. My friend hadn't lost a lug nut in 30 years of trailering boats, with countless miles on the highway. Even a well-maintained trailer can come apart if someone vandalizes it. An auto parts store was open late, that carried bearing protectors and spare lug nuts.įor them, it was a wake-up call that boat owners should carry spare trailer equipment with them. Without a spare cap or duct tape, they wrapped a Ziploc sandwich bag over the open, still-greasy bearings, and eased into the next town without loosing more grease. The tire was changed, but the buddy bearing had impacted the highway and vanished, splattering grease on the boat. The two anglers were actually able to lift boat and trailer a foot high and barely slide a handy milk crate under the trailer, allowing room for a car jack to operate properly. But the johnboat was 15 feet long, and light. Missing nuts could have been replaced from the other tire or from a box of spares.Ī bigger, top-heavy boat might have flipped while leaning that far over, especially on a curve in the road. After fishing, a cursory check at the boat ramp would have prevented the entire episode: loose lug nuts could have been tightened. Then the tire ejected sideways - not in a lethal manner across the highway, but off into dark woods where it was hard to find.Īs it turned out, his four new 2-inch lug nuts, recently painted to avoid corrosion, had somehow vanished - most likely loosened by someone at an isolated boat ramp, where the locals seem to take issue with out-of-towners fishing their spots. The steel hub ran over its own tire and rim, damaging the steel rim in five places. Instead of crashing through their truck's back window, a lucky bounce took the tire under the trailer. The boat trailer was leaning over and riding on the little steel wheel hub. The tire took some crazy bounces, sometimes 12 feet in the air, before catching up with my friend's decelerating truck and boat. While pulling his aluminum jonboat home, a tire and rim came loose on a quiet, straight, divided highway with only occasional passing trucks. Trailer maintenance is a little mundane, so let's get to the exciting part first. I've been reassessing my own trailer maintenance program after a friend recently had one of his trailer tires fly loose at highway speed. Damaged tire and rim with grease splattered when the hub hit the highway.Įver had your boat trailer break down on the highway? Such an event can get ugly really quick - even make the local papers.
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