...living on the Cape in mass, my travel time is limited to 15 minutes in either direction to hit water.. lol. I do not travel very fast. Besides, its strapped in for a roller coaster ride with bow straps, safety chains etc..

I always used the winch cable and safety chain on the bow eye and a strap over the stern. After seeing that V20 accident, as an added precaution, I started using the anchor chain thru the bow roller, shackled to the trailer...in case the bow eye fails.

I note about the strap over the stern...
when I had a 16' aluminum boat, I was making a tight turn and the trailer wheel rode up a very tall curb. I saw it and went REAL SLOW thinking it would be OK.
As the trailer straightened out of the turn it went up on one wheel and fell over.

Luckily I had the strap on. Boat stayed attached to trailer. We jumped out, , flipped her back up, threw the fishing rods back into the boat, secured the hitch and got back in the truck before the light turned green.

Point is... don't rely just on gravity. An accident, a bump, a swerve, a failure of the bow eye and the boat will move...

As a general rule of thumb, most manufacturers recommend 5 - 7% of the total weight of the boat, trailer and engine as the amount you should set as your tongue weight. Understand that this is a guide and can be offset by additional factors such as gear, fuel, ice, etc. Generally speaking though, it's always better to have a little too much tongue weight than too little. Too little tongue weight leads to swaying and fish-tailing at highway speeds. Too much and the tow vehicle can become difficult to steer. But it's always been my experience that fish-tailing at speed is far more dangerous.

Compliments of Boat US is this handy guide on how to determine your tongue weight, both by using a commercial scale or by doing it at home using a beam scale you can make. http://www.boatus.com/magazine/trail...weight-diy.asp

fwiw I NEVER set up any trailer with less than 10% tongue weight.

Smoke, I'm sorta in the same boat (so to speak). My tongue weight is set for 10% DRY weight (no gear, fuel or ice) in my driveway. I know that after adding the fuel etc, it's going to change slightly, but not enough to effect my trailering. Plus I use 2 belly straps (one in the back, one over the bow just in front of the windshield. So I know I'm safe, and will have a good trip to the launch ramp and back.

i have seen this on cape cod roads a few times! luckly not me. but i too strap the crap out of it, as far as tounge weight goes, i adjust just till i can't lift it and i have always been fine

I definitely have way too much tongue weight as I can't budge it when I try to lift it. And it squats my truck way more than any other trailer I've hooked to it. My Striper is way to tongue light though. I can lift the tongue with one finger. Luckily the ramp I use is just a couples miles down the road. However to move the axles will require buying all new spring hardware as I can tell these will snap. I'm trying to sell it so I'll let that be the next guys problem. Hopefully he will take care of it and not be one of these guys.

Check your Striper trailer again. Most trailers (matter of fact, ALL boat trailers I've ever seen) have the axle assembly in a sort of trough with predrilled holes in the side of the main frame. To change the position of the wheels you simply unbolt the axle assembly, slide it to the position you want and rebolt it through one of those other sets of holes. Point is you shouldn't have to buy anything... springs, hangers, etc. in order to adjust the axle position. You might want to check again. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. :head:

That's how the trailer my V is on is set up. However this one the spring hangers are U-bolted to the frame. A simple loosening of the U-bolts and sliding them back a few inches would be easy enough. But I seriously doubt the U-bolts will come free. I've been PB blasting them for a couple days so hopefully I'll get lucky. If I have trouble selling it I'll probably buy the 6 U bolts and take care of it myself. I read somewhere you get 10-15 lbs per inch of axle movement either way. I'm with MacoJoe though. I just do it til I can't lift it any more.

That's fine IF you can lift 300 lbs