Dan, I have a Trail-rite also, and one of the first things I did when I got my 15 was take the trailer to a commercial welder and have an extension built. They cut off the couple and tongue, welded on a hefty square tube about two feet long and made a seven foot hollow steel bar that slides into the tube where it is held in place by a standard half inch hitch pin. A new coupler was welded to one end of the sliding tongue. They did a nice job and returned it to me with all the parts painted to match the rest of the trailer, new safety chains, coupler and hitch pin. Cost about $400 U.S. parts and labor. Procedure at the ramp is to deploy the jack (I use a swing-back model), block the wheels, unhitch the trailer, lights and safety chains, remove the hitch pin from the extension, pull the extension out and re-insert the hitch pin into a hole in the after end, hook up to the vehicle and swing the jack out of the way. I use a stout extra long dock line tied off to the bow cleat and tied off to the truck for safety (no chains with tongue extended) and so I can unhook the winch from the bow eye and control the boat dry-footed as it floats off. Pretty straightforward really and sounds more complicated than it is. All this only takes about ten minutes extra. It is best to rig the boat with the tongue in its road position to avoid strain on the extension. Also I do not recommend jumping into the stern of the boat while it is on the trailer with the tongue extended as this can exert enough force to pop the coupler off the hitch ball. Do not ask me how I know this. I always remove the tongue when the boat is put away in the garage. It stows neatly out of the way on the trailer cross members and gives an extra foot of clearance. It also avoids any possibility of the extension rusting tight in the tube. All said, I am very happy with this mod. It is simple and elegant and has allowed me to sail off shallow ramps and retrieve at low tides while keeping my truck out of the brine. Cheers George "Haiku" 1986 M15 #385 Santa Rosa, CA On Jul 9, 2007, at 8:09 PM, dmostue@comcast.net wrote:
Hi all, I have a Trail-rite trailer and was wondering if any of you have added a tongue extension for your Trail-rite. What has been your experience? Thanks. Dan Mostue M15 #500
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