Quote Originally Posted by RoadToad View Post
In a perfect world, the ramps would be long enough for this to not be a problem. Now, I don't know how far they'd have to be extended, but I have a feeling it would be too expensive to do them all. Maybe they could extend certain ones, then restrict boats with motors over a certain size to those? I don't know, could this be done fairly? Somehow I doubt it. And I don't have a large boat, so this doesn't apply to me, but I do have a question. Is this washout simply a factor of the size of the motor, or is it caused by people accelerating at the last minute to get their boats all the way up on the trailer? I guess what I'm really asking is, is this last-second acceleration necessary? I don't know how many times I've seen young, apparently able-bodied men, who had their boats up on the trailer to where it would seem to be easy to winch it up the rest of the way, yet instead they put it in reverse, back it off, and then hit the gas, apparently so they can get it far enough up on the trailer to where they don't get their feet wet. You large boat owners, please correct me if I'm wrong, and don't take offense, but I've always wondered how much of this is necessary, and how much is just laziness?

The "apparently able-bodied men" you speak of aren't necessarily always able-bodied. I'm 6'4" and not slightly built but I am disabled. A pinched nerve in my neck and arthritis in my back (among other things) put me on disability several years ago. Not trying to start an argument - just saying.

For those with no experience loading a large boat onto a trailer, it can be much harder than it looks. It depends on boat length, weight, horsepower, ramp angle and wind/current conditions. In many cases it is simply not feasible (or even possible) to winch a large boat onto its trailer.