WARNING!!!

Well remember the post of the motorhome at Lake Elsie. Well last night at about 7:00 i was almost in the barnies with him, if it wasn't for the quick response of the ramp keeper and his friend. As i backed in the trailer to the muffler just as normal and with ease, i applied the break gently and the truck and trailer stopped, then began to slide. With the tires spinning my son put the boat on the trailer and kept it in drive to keep me from going in. The force of the boat and sliding of my Tahoe, the trailer jack-knifed. My son then backed off the boat and i slid again. As the ramp keeper rushed over with a friend and his 4X4 i keep sliding...WHAT a helpless feeling as you see water starting to cover your knees while sitting in the driver seat. Got hooked up and pulled out and opened the doors and it looked like Moses parting the red sea. My wife in the boat with my son told me later that as the truck began to slide my son yelled "my PSP"!! SO fyi..BE EXTREAMLY CAREFUL LOAD AND UNLOADIN>>>>
Thanks again for all the help of the West Marina Ramp Keeper!!
Richard

I'm assuming that you do not have four-wheel-drive, right? What caused the slipping? Is it all mossy?

let it sink get a new one

Ya alge! Right two wheel drive. Going shopping Monday. A friend also started to slip last week and he had 4W. Pull the lever and out you go. Well i thought of letting it go, but my daughter totaled her car two weeks ago..don't think our insurance company would have thought much of us...

Ya two wheel drive is usually sufficient on a nice ramp but it's nice to know that you can put it in 4wd before backing in and knowin you wuill get out, or not worrying about your back tires being in the water. Good idea about going shopping.

On our ramps we dont even use the 4WD, but I guess that just makes us lucky.

I had a friend out with my new boat. I asked him if he was comfortable backing the trailer in? He said “no.” I settled for him driving the trailer around to the ramp and I took the boat around. He decided to be nice and back in. Lined up on the ramp he hollered from shore “how far in.” I hollered back “until the wheel wells are just under water.” Guess which wheel wells he tried to burry. He started sliding in long before they were completely buried and fortunately jammed on the brakes. Sure got my blood flowing.

4x4 engaged and out we went.

For those of you with 2WD and no traction device (limited slip, etc...). If you ever slip or can't get traction pulling out, either put one foot on the brake lightly, or pull your ebrake a few clicks. That'll get some power over to the wheel that has traction.

May be of help if you aren't already too far gone.

-gvb

another thing that works verh well is get to the top of the ramp and put the car in neutral and let the boat pull you down. Your wheels will not slip.....now pulling back out that is another thing

I had a similar experience at Elsinore. One morning we launched and my 2WD Yukon could not pull out with an empty trailer. The traction control prevents wheel spin in the rain, but in this case it was useless. Without moving the tires would just spin. Luckily we were not sliding backwards. We tried to push with the boat and the trailer started to jack knife. The ramp was slick. While standing barefoot in ankle deep water I started to slide down the ramp until I was waist deep and could paddle with my hands over to the dock. The ramp attendant helped pull us out on his quad. It was early in the morning and the ramp had little use. Later in the day it was busy and the use had cleaned the ramps, there was no problem pulling out. This was the first time I’ve had any trouble launching.

this works only with 2 people but a trick I learned from a fellow WW is to start the boat and quickly hit the throttle to help the truck get the boat out.There is that one difficult point where the tailer acts like a suction,that's where it helps and then you are home free.I didn't even know he was gonna do it,I got his trailer and recieved the boat,winched it on and as I was pulling his trailer with boat al of the suddon it got easy and never looked back.When I asked him about it,he said he does that to save the tranny on his truck.I figured it be easy thing to do when slipping on the ramp.