So, last Fall, I had the pleasure of sitting down with some old friends who happen to be the new folks behind Southern Culture on the Fly magazine to record a podcast episode (SCOF CAST ep8 The Sherpa and Warehouse of Coyotes) where we did a deep dive into the history of Towee leading up to the release of The Sherpa and shared a few stories along the way. At some point in the conversation, someone mentioned trailers and we immediately fell down a skiff trailer rabbit hole for several minutes. The podcast dropped earlier this week and while listening to it, It occurred to me that its been a long while since Ive done a blog post about our trailers so maybe now is the perfect time to go in depth on how we build our trailers and, maybe even more importantly, why we do it this way.
We firmly believe that we are building the best, most useful small skiff trailers around. Period. Our skiffs have been described by owners with words like "awesome", "grossly overbuilt", " somewhat unconventional" and my personal favorite "stupidly reliable". While I am a first generation boat builder, I am third generation in the trailer business- my family is known for trailers. More importantly, before my first guiding stint, I spent much of my 30s with a job that allowed me to criss cross the country and take a skiff with me. I may have been in Florida this week and Idaho the next - much of that time pulling a skiff. Now, keep in mind that in those days that this was very "pre-Towee" and I was pulling other company's trailers. I honestly think that Ive had a trailer of some brand broken down on most every I75 exit from Detroit to Ft Lauderdale over the years. Lets just say that Ive used emory cloth to resurface a destroyed spindle and repacked bearings within mere feet of passing semis on more than one occasion. Pain makes us better and fosters great ideas. Sometimes...
The Towee Pro trailer and new Sherpa Pro trailers are built to launch and recover with confidence, tow at interstate speeds for days on end and handle off road ops such as trail drags, forest service roads and beach launches with ease. Salt, road salt, pot holes, gumbo mud, dust, sand - it just eats it up and with some very minimal maintenance, will continue doing so for years. We have several that have been in service for 12-14 years now in everything from Keys salt to Green Bay Winters to Idaho dust. I personally have put over 40,000 miles on our trailers in a year.
To build a better trailer, we start with a controversial choice - choosing a heavy duty C channel galvanized frame over aluminum (writer waxes moustache and assumes a boxing stance to take on all comers..). Aluminum framed trailers are great for heavier skiffs - say something along the lines of the OG Hewes Bonefisher 16 and up. However, for ultra light skiffs, they are simply too flexible to tow well and become giant springs on the highway. Most just really, really suck. More trailer weight is needed for better performance and to get to the solution that we arrived at for the original Towee Pro trailers years ago, we first did a deep dive into why current production galvanized trailers sucked so bad. You can find a discussion of that deep dive starting around the 40 minute mark of the SCOF Podcast above if you are interested but, in summary, the economics of selling skiffs through dealers, super cheap rectangular tube frames and the cheapest galvanizing process available conspire to build a ticking time bomb that starts to slowly self destruct the first time that it is backed into salty water and you just cant stop it.
To remedy this, we chose the heaviest c channel available in our specified size with radiused interior angles that not only cant hold water but also is open to be fully treated during the galvanizing process. We also chose a superior, heavy duty galvanizing process and finished off the frame with large (now even larger) steps and walk on fenders that will stand up to even the largest anglers.
For our next controversial choice, we chose well matched springs over torsion axles. There is just now comparison between the two when it comes to rugged reliability and ride.
All of our trailers feature Dexter Vaulted No Maintenance hubs. Over the years, we have tried everything from high quality traditional greased hubs to oil filled and more and you just cant beat the reliability of the Dexter vaulted system that we have been using for well over a decade. While anything man made can and will fail, these hubs have really been amazing.
All Towee Pro trailers are true "drive on" trailers and feature secondary lower rollers that facilitate shallower launches and recoveries - even on unimproved launches, banks, gravel bars and beaches. It's worth noting that we have occasionally seen a couple of comments online about a user that was having trouble with shallow launches and recoveries. After a quick follow up from us at the shop, in each case we learned that the user had purchased the skiff used and simply didn't quite understand how the trailer worked. A few tips had them headed in the right direction.
At this point, I think that it would be overstating the obvious to say that no one should buy a trailer that doesn't feature all LED lighting and a quality wiring harness that has been properly installed. There is no reason to have to rewire a trailer every 2 years.
So there you have it. Was this post way too long? Probably. Does it sound like someone trying to convince you to join a cult? Maybe. Are we fanatical and passionate about building the best, most reliable small skiff trailer we can build? Absolutely! Thanks for riding along on this deep dive and let us know what questions you have for us. You can always drop us a line - todd@toweebaots.com Lets talk about where your new Towee Pro trailer can take you.
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