It is a great suggestion regarding adding lights to the extended tongue. I
never thought of the sideways "blind spot" due to an extended trailer
tongue. I added 3 feet onto my little trailer and do NOT have any lights
forward of the aft end of the boat. You've given me a project for the
weekend. .......thanks....

p.s. regarding an extended tongue making backing up "less
maneuverable"...yes, but, the longer the trailer/tongue, the BETTER the
trailer backs up. Think of an 18 wheeler backing up in Wal-Mart's parking
lot and think of you backing a short boat on a short trailer down a ramp. It
is true that the 18 wheeler needs MORE ROOM to maneuver ( and that is
probably exactly what you said) but I'll back down an 18 wheeler anytime
versus a 14 foot boat trailer. regards. RichG


"Chuck Tribolet" wrote in message
...
Everybody else seems to have gone off on the relative tongue weight.

Other factors:

A longer tongue will back up more stable, but be less maneuverable when
backing.

A longer tongue will help keep your truck out of the salt water.

With a long tongue, I'd consider adding trailer running lights under the
bow
somewhere. It can be a long way between the back of your truck and
the first running lights on the trailer. Several years ago, I damn near
center-punched a Corvette on a trailer with no lights between the back
of the truck and the back of the trailer. He came out of a blind side
street
on a rainy night, and it sure looked like just the tow vehicle. I got
all kinds
of sideways avoiding the trailer, no harm, no foul, but some running
lights
on the trailer would have kept my adrenaline level down. My Shorland'r
trailer has a long tongue from the factory, and I added running lights
under
the bow (there was already a set at the front of the trailer fenders).

Finally, several folks have said 10% on the tongue. I've seen lots of
recommendations
of 5-10%, mine is 5% and OK.


--
Chuck Tribolet

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/triblet

Silicon Valley: STILL the best day job in the world.


"Gary Warner" wrote in message
...

Designing our trailer it looks like for our 22' boat we could have the
tongue as litle as 2' from the bow -- or 24' total rig. But we'ld like
to
put the wheels (tandem) as far back as possible so less boat and
less weight is hanging out past the wheels. This should help
stability. SO, the longer the tongue, the furthur back we can
put the wheels. ~ Storage of the trailer is no problem and though
a longer rig makes tight manuvering harder I don't think we'll
have any major prolems with that.

So, any other problems with having a longer trailer tongue?