I’ve been driving a 2006 Honda Ridgeline and using it to tow our 26x. After 225,000 miles it was time to let her go. So I recently bought a Jeep Gladiator. The Ridgeline has a max towing capacity of 5000 lbs. The Gladiator package I bought has a stated max towing capacity of 7700 lbs. Of course there’s more to towing than that (like dealing with GWVR/GWCR) but let’s keep it simple for now, my brain is getting overwhelmed.
Starting with the basic weights:
Macgregor 26X - 2350 lbs (not including gear)
Dual Axle trailer - 1050 lbs (found on the VIN plate)
Mercury outboard - 205 lbs (found online, so iffy?)
Gas 12 gallons. - 73 lbs
3,746 lbs
And that’s before adding any gear on board. I really have no idea how to guesstimate that. Grill, safety gear, anchors, toys, sails, etc etc etc. What would you call it, Let’s say 500 lbs?
The last long trip we took, there were 5 of us. 2 adults, one teenager and two smaller children. Taking a wild stab, I’m going to guess 200 lbs of “stuff” for each person (food, drinks, clothing, etc) and call that 1000 lbs.
If those numbers are remotely close, I’m at 5246 lbs. Overweight for the Ridgeline, and not even looking at GWVR including passengers/gear in the truck. Glad I didn’t get in an accident.
While Jeep claims 7700, I want to stick with 80% of that as a safety factor. So 6160 lbs ends up being my max. Do you supposed my figures have a 900 lb margin of error? Hmm. I hope so.
Next mental exercise is to figure out how much weight I’m carrying in the Jeep and add that in to the gross vehicle equation. We may need to start taking two vehicles, or doing two trips to the ramps for our heavier trips.
Bottom line, I’ve justified towing with the Ridgeline for years and to be fair it’s done great. Tows the boat well, no issues stopping etc. But we tow short distances and down here on the Alabama/Florida coast it’s pretty flat. However, I think I was taking chances I shouldn’t have, just didn’t realize it. Time to rethink a few things about how we tow.
Conclusions:
I’m going to go through the boat and get rid of the dead weight. I bet I have a ton of stuff in there I don’t really need to carry and can ditch. I’m also basing my “personal gear” numbers on a long trip. I don’t think we are carrying 200 lbs of stuff/per person for day trips or weekends.
The ramps we use are typically within a few miles of the house. If we’re going to Pensacola Bay sometimes we’ll drive about 30 miles to Big Lagoon State Park. I have a general rule of spending more miles sailing than driving. Seems to make the trips more fun. So we aren’t doing long or hard towing. With that said, I still want to maintain a reasonable safety margin - which apparently I haven’t been doing.
I’ve never gone to a scale and weighed our setup. I’ve just assumed I was good since the Ridgeline “felt” fine towing the boat. I think I should go get weighed. All this napkin math is fun, but I’d like an actual number to work with.
incl Trailer, 2 axles, is around 5000 lbs
