Bad trip to the boat launch!

[Sean R]

I've always just thrown it in park with my foot on the brake, engaged the parking brake then slowly let my foot off the brake, doesn't this accomplish the same thing?

I've been doing the same as you for years, I might try this new procedure tomorrow. Talking about tomorrow, the wife and I are taken the day off and sending the kids to school, hell yeah

 

[fatboyroy]

Does everyone know parking brake and when shifting to park, it only locks the rear wheel? When the ramp is slippery and rear tires started skidding, the front wheel does nothing. You can engage 4WD and shift to park so that front wheel will lock too if you have 4WD tow vehicle.

 

[mraz72]

Watch boating videos (failures) online and you'll see this is a common occurrence. I still don't get what the problem is, are MOST of these fails because of leaving the truck in gear?

Even that's hard to believe because you would notice as soon as you exited the vehicle and it started moving backwards.

some idiots actually drive the truck into the water do deep that the truck stalls and continues backwards, sinking
Another video I saw I believe the truck was pulled in because the boat was still tied down to the trailer. Go backwards 3 mph, hit brakes expecting boat to release, boat yanks you back a few more feet etc.

Seems to happen far to often, I would love to hear interviews of the drivers, are they all drunk ?

 

[RobbieO]

Ramps get pretty slick when the water is low. It pays to have 4-wheel drive. Or, he forget to put it in park???

I have 4WD and have found myself slipping on the ramp a few times, so I moved to a different lane. The launch ramps here in CA are really steep right now, and there is loose dirt, gravel etc. on the ramps. I always use a brake pedal tool, and tire chock. That ramp looked pretty good, so someone must of left it of park. Sad day.

 

[DogDadDave]

This has me thinking that I should make a habit of putting it in 4WD and locking the rear diff before backing up. Also makes me wonder how tight the electric parking brake is on my truck.

Most of the videos I've seen are either older or heavily modified/lifted trucks, so I usually assume some sort of mechanical failure due to age or improper modification, but this is a relatively new HD truck. If they put it in park in 2WD, isn't that effectively only locking up one rear wheel in an open differential? Maybe not enough then to prevent the slide. It looks like the front wheels turn as it slides back which would indicate that possibly being the case.

 

[Embraerjetpilot]

My truck has an electronic parking brake. I hate it. I wanted the old style. The kind where you pull the lever and feel the brake setting.

 

[adrianp89]

My truck has an electronic parking brake. I hate it. I wanted the old style. The kind where you pull the lever and feel the brake setting.

I've worked on so many cars with a broken parking brake cable. I will put my trust in the new style.

 

[RobbieO]

I've worked on so many cars with a broken parking brake cable. I will put my trust in the new style.

Agreed...no stretched cables, or adjustment issues.

 

[AZMark]

I've worked on so many cars with a broken parking brake cable. I will put my trust in the new style.

Ya my last two vehicles have required constant adjustment to keep the parking brakes functioning. They loosen up and then the lever won’t go far enough to actually tighten them.

 

[Babin Farms]

I believe its about 50/50 leaving it in anything but P and sliding down the ramp due to slime. If you watch the online boat ramp fails about 1/2 of the tires are locked up when it's getting drug out of the water which tell me it's in park and it was backed to the point the rear tires were in the water & on the slime which is slipperier than ice. The other 1/2 the rear tires spin free which tells me that it's either a manual transmission that popped out of gear or that the vehicle was not put in park. I've had one truck slide on the slime but I caught it before it decided to go for a swim, since then I put it in 4wd if I have to get out of the vehicle or if the rear tires are in the water.

 

[adrianp89]

I believe its about 50/50 leaving it in anything but P and sliding down the ramp due to slime. If you watch the online boat ramp fails about 1/2 of the tires are locked up when it's getting drug out of the water which tell me it's in park and it was backed to the point the rear tires were in the water & on the slime which is slipperier than ice. The other 1/2 the rear tires spin free which tells me that it's either a manual transmission that popped out of gear or that the vehicle was not put in park. I've had one truck slide on the slime but I caught it before it decided to go for a swim, since then I put it in 4wd if I have to get out of the vehicle or if the rear tires are in the water.

Maybe it's me but I will never put the tires in the water. Don't need the salt water messing up my rims.

 

[Babin Farms]

Maybe it's me but I will never put the tires in the water. Don't need the salt water messing up my rims.

I've been on ramps that I've almost had the rear bumper under water to launch/retrieve the boat. Luckily there's no saltwater around where I typically go.

 

[JetBoatingUpstateNY]

Maybe it's me but I will never put the tires in the water. Don't need the salt water messing up my rims.

i wish i had this problem
-person who basically drives in salt water from November to March

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

My last boat was a pretty light sailboat and I would beach launch it (packed sand) at our lake with a 2 wheel drive truck. I could do this by putting the rear wheels at the water's edge because of a 6' tongue extension.

My new TV is a 2020 Ram 1500 4X4 that I love (by far my best truck ever!). One quirky little thing, however, is the shifter, as it is a little knob on the dash It is very similar to the pic below that I copied off the internet. When I first got the truck, there was a couple of times that I thought I put the truck in Park and it was still in gear.



I have seen some folks also use a wheel chock under the front driver side wheel attached to a short rope tied off to a running board. When they start moving forward up the ramp it gets dragged along until they reach a level place to stop and untie it. I'm considering doing this with my next boat. Thanks to the internet, putting a TV into the drink is my worst fear of trailering.

Jim

 

[David Martin]

YOU CAN TELL BY THE MIRRIOR behind the reporter and the water depth(at the dock) that he backed down into the water to far AND Floated THE REAR END at that point gravity did the rest...........parking break only sets rear brakes and thay dont do much is she is floating...............Shaking head now!!!!!!! bet he wont make that mistake again.

Opps forgot to add the back end was almost ready to flote.......when he got out and walked over to the boat it started to flote .............his weight was the tipping scale.

 

[Shir9406]

Dang. That truck went down quick.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

One last thing to add is that if that clueless reporter wasn't standing in the way, we would have gotten a better view of what happened!

Jim