Triple towing

[Hillmann]

So, as of this year it is now legal to triple tow (vehicle towing two trailers) without a permit and both trailers can be bumper pull. I am in the process of building a small standie that I hope will be under 500 pounds empty so about 800 loaded for camping and I with a bit of work I could mount a ball hitch on the back of it. Behind the camper I would want to tow a 14 foot aluminum boat with a 3 horse and very light trailer. I would guess the boat and trailer weighs 300- 400 pounds.

So, now my question is, how do you load the trailers so they don't sway when going down the road?

I assume that I would want as much weight as possible in the camper just in front of the axle and I would wan't the boat as light as possible. But since I have never triple towed before I don't know if sway will be a problem.

[GuitarPhotog]

So, as of this year it is now legal to triple tow (vehicle towing two trailers) without a permit and both trailers can be bumper pull.

Not in California it isn't, thank heavens. That's all we need on our crowded freeways.

<Chas>

[Hillmann]

So, as of this year it is now legal to triple tow (vehicle towing two trailers) without a permit and both trailers can be bumper pull.

Not in California it isn't, thank heavens. That's all we need on our crowded freeways.

<Chas>

Actually, I think CA has a reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin when it comes to licence endorsements which means since in Wisconsin my liscence allows me to triple tow I could also triple tow in CA. Whereas in CA to triple tow you need to have an endorsement on you license to triple tow so that means if you were to come to Wisconsin with a CA drivers license you would not be allowed to triple tow. (at least that is my understanding of it when it comes to non commercial licenses). Of course if I were to try triple towing in CA I wouldn't get far since every cop that would see me would pull me over.

[GuitarPhotog]

Calif. DMV Publication dl648 says that with a "non-commercial Class A, B, or C license, you may NOT tow two vehicles or trailers"

http://apps.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/dl648/dl648.pdf

To the best of my knowledge, towing triples is completely prohibited in CA. There are none on the freeways or interstates, where they are common in Oregon on the interstates.

<Chas>

[GuitarPhotog]

Ah, my misunderstanding. In Calif. a "triple" is two trailers behind a truck/tractor. In states like Ore. and Nevada "quadruples" are permitted, i.e., three trailers behind a truck/tractor. Such are prohibited in CA.

In Calif triples are permitted ONLY with Commercial driving licenses. You cannot tow a boat behind a car behind a motor home with a non-Commercial license in CA.

<Chas>

[CarlLaFong]

First of all there is some confusion here. You are not towing triples, you are towing doubles. You can tow doubles in CA. There are licensing and brake requirements and, I think, the front trailer must be a gooseneck or fifth wheel

[bobhenry]

As I built both trailers and towed them to the Crossroads of America gathering I can truthfully say I have survived towing tandums. In fact I did a little off roading with them when I fell asleep at the wheel and drifted off the road. All tracked well (on and off the road)and I attribute it to equiping both trailers with fairly long tongues. Both are nose heavy by design with a 65/35 length distribution. You have to remember the second trailer reduces the tongue weight of the first due to the weight on the first trailers rear coupler, so load the first trailer nose heavy to compensate.

[Hillmann]

First of all there is some confusion here. You are not towing triples, you are towing doubles. You can tow doubles in CA. There are licensing and brake requirements and, I think, the front trailer must be a gooseneck or fifth wheel

When it is commercial you only count the trailers, when it is non commercial you count the trailers and the tow vehicle, or at least that seems to be what I have found when looking up information on how to load the trailers to prevent sway.

Not that it really matters what it is called, I am thinking of towing a boat behind a camper behind my car both trailers being bumper pulled. And I have no intention of dragging all that to CA I plan to stay in Wisconsin for the most part. So now back to the original question. How do I load the trailers to prevent sway?

[S. Heisley]

When I was in Nevada this past week, I saw a number of commercial trucks towing 3 trailers in a row; and, with the desert winds blowing, they were snake-wiggling along the highway. It made me pretty nervous and I didn't want to pass them or get near them! Let's not even talk about the way they dragged those units up hill.... They may be okay but they certainly didn't look like they were okay.

[jeffmutch]

As bobhenry stated, You'd be wise to keep some tongue weight on the first trailer. It sounds like you'd be able to do this simply by shifting your cargo towards the front, without any modifications to the trailer itself. Worst case scenario would be to have the tongue weight of the second trailer cancel out the tongue weight of the first.

As a side note, I'd be very careful during the colder months up there in Wisconsin. I've seen these double ("triple") trailers start sliding around on icy roads and it can make a big mess real fast! Either way, you've got more guts than I do!!! Good luck!

[Hillmann]

Bob,
Thanks for the suggestion. The boat trailer tows great on it's own, I would guess it has about 25 pounds of tongue weight. The camper I have not towed yet so have no idea how it will tow. I am kind of concerned that since the camper will be so light that it might get drug around by the boat more than a heavier camper would. How much do your campers weigh? My other concern is my camper is 6'1" wide and the boat trailer is only 4'6" wide so I don't know if I will be able to see it. And now that I think about it I wonder if my car can power 3 sets of break lights, 3 sets of tail lights and 3 sets of blinkers without heating up the wire or causing the bulbs to dim out.

Even with those problems to overcome I still think it would be very nice to be able to go camping and take the boat with since usually camping for me is about fishing or hunting.

[Hillmann]

Jeff,
I'm not to concerned about icy roads because once it gets cold there is no use to tow a boat behind the camper since there is no open water. And in the winter I plan to park the camper on the ice and fish out of holes in the floor.

[bobhenry]

Jeff,
I'm not to concerned about icy roads because once it gets cold there is no use to tow a boat behind the camper since there is no open water. And in the winter I plan to park the camper on the ice and fish out of holes in the floor.

I LOVE THE LOGIC !

Do not guess on tongue weight get out the bathroom scales and check. To check you need to be at towing height don't just lay the coupler on the scale raise the scale to the towing height then place the coupler on the scale. Towing heights should level to slightly nose down never never inclined. The chuck wagon is 525 pounds with a 175 ( if I remember right) tongue weight. The hardware in the tongue box and the cast iron up front is part of this reason. The barn is in the 1600 pound range ready to camp with about 250 pound tongue weight. I am sure I won't do the math to suit a few but at 65 / 35 weight distribution the 175 pounds of the chuckwagons tongue weight at 35% at the rear of the barn should reduce the barn tongue weight by about 60 pounds. I am sure there is tongue length leverage factors and wind velocity and time of the day and what ever you may want to throw at this equasion but this is the country logic method I am using.

[CarlLaFong]

The idea of towing more than one, bumper pulled, trailers seem awfully hinky to me. The reason you never see it in commercial use is because of the weight distribution issues and the way the semi trailer is constructed. Whether the tractor is pulling one, two or three trailers, they're all fifth wheel designs. The forward trailer locks into the fifth wheel on the tractor, the remaining ones sit on "joe dogs". The load is not transferred to the trailer in front. With two bumper pulled trailers, the chance of something going awry is just too great and the consequences too frightening for me to even consider it for a moment. I know it's been done and some of you have done it. I have run with scissors and am still here, but there's always next time.

[Techguy]

I remember when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's, my grandfather had a 24 foot TT. The TV was a 250 Ford with a shell, using a tow ball and leveling bars. When we took the fishing boat to camp, we would roll/back the aluminum boat's transom up to the truck on 6 inch wheels that flipped down. We would attach a couple ropes to hooks on the sidewalls of the boat and turn a crank that would stand the boat up on the wheels and then pull if up onto the top of the shell.

We put the motor and fuel tank inside the shell. In the shell, he had built a sleeping deck that covered a portion of the truck bed and the rest of the cargo was under the bed platform. The grandkids would sleep in the truck while the GP would sleep inside the camper.

I just searched and found the Eide