Saw a boat sliding down the highway

[Feydakin]

Went to the Cubs game in Chicago yesterday and on the way home stopped at the Bass Pro Shops in Portage.. Nice store, but the local tackle store, Lunkers, may have a better selection of lures..

Anyway, heading down the US 20 Bypass I see a motorhome with a small (14'?) aluminum boat behind it start to wobble left and right.. A semi passes him as it gets worse.. Then a car passes him as it gets even more worse.. I'm thinking one of those two had to have pointed out the swaying trailer because now it's going from one side of the lane to the other..

I'm just hitting the gas hard to try to get past him and let him know when it all goes even worse and the boat comes flying off the trailer along with one of the side boards.. I just managed to get slowed down enough to weave through the debris and pull over.. The boat laned bottom down and slid probably 150 feet or more down the highway.. I pull over, and so did 3 or 4 other guys while we watch the motorhome try to get stopped quite a way down the road.. We ran out and drug the boat out of the center of the road while cars aren't even bothering to slow down..

From the looks of it the boat survived ok.. Only one rod was tossed out of the boat and it looked ok.. Even the prop on the little 10hp tiller motor looked ok.. He got real lucky.. Well, except for having his boat in the middle of the road.. He called his son who was coming with a new trailer and would be there in 30 minutes so I tried to talk to the guy for a few minutes but he disn't seem to want any help so being that I hadn't been home in two nights I left..

When I went by the trailer the center bar looked like it simply broke in half near the middle of the trailer just before the axle and the back half simply fell down.. It also looking like he had tied the boat to the trailer with bungees.. There were a bunch of them broken and scattered all over the road..

I probably could have tried harder to get up to him and warn him, but I'm thinking it would have just put me in line to get hit by a boat the took 5 men to slide off the highway..
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[gdn443]

Thats every mans nightmare. Nice of you to stop and help. To often no one helps anyone. Good for you.
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[davetclown]

sound to me like he was doing at least 70.

that trailer sounds like it was one of them split tralers that when you pull the lever the back end drops.

it also sounds like if you had have caught up to the guy he would have been rude enough to fly an eagle your way.

and bungies cords stretched to far are nothing more than two pound test on a 11 pound bass...[crazy] there still has to be some strech in them when strapped in place, if not all bets are off....

you made the right choice in staying back off of him, those kind of people I want far in front of me or ten miles behind me.
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[Feydakin]

Definitely doing about 70mph.. Speed limit there is 65mph and I had the cruise set at 70 and wasn't catching him till I hit the gas.. But the Ford just doesn't have the hard launch ability at that speed that my old vette did []

It very well could have been a drop trailer.. I think he must have been pulling it on just the chains when it was swinging that far back and forth..
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[davetclown]

I droped my trailer last week going over a hump in a intersection, tung popped right up off the ball, good thing I had chains on, but still it was scarry.

what had happened was the tung in the hitch did not come down when I locked it in place. it was one of them hasnt been used in a while and not oiled thingy... but thats what the chains are for [crazy].

dont want to do that again....

I have seen boats laying on the Eway because people forgot to strap them down after power loading them on to their trailers and a good blast of wind just blows them off the back of the trailer....

deffenantly not a good idea to be riding the ask of some one pulling a boat, you never know when something could happen, cooler tops blow right off the trailer, or a marlin makes one last jump and goes sailing though your wind sheild...[shocked]
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[birddogwi]

Wow! That'll wake you up!
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