57 Ways To Rig #9: At The Wheel

If you’re driving a van or car with a shell strapped to the roof the only change you need to make to your driving is to be a little more careful than normal. But driving a shell trailer is a completely different story.

At their best shell trailers—and shell trucks—are difficult to drive. A trailer loaded with un-sectioned eights is as long, if not longer than a tractor-trailer. At their worst they can be a hazard on the highway to yourself and others.

It’s crucial when driving a shell trailer you plan your route ahead before beginning your journey. There are many things to be concerned about. A few notable ones are:

• Rush-hour and construction traffic
• Dangerous turns
• Low overhead
• Bag weather
• Driving at night

The three most common causes of accidents involving shell trailers are poor driving skills, lack of good visibility, and improper tying of shells.

All of these items are important when transporting equipment, however, in this short post I wanted to touch quickly on a four items.

Overheads

To help avoid problems with low overheads measure the total height of the trailer, or vehicle, after the shells are loaded. Make your measurements from the ground to the tip of the rudder or skeg—most trailers with shells on the top rack will be around ten feet high. I usually add four inches to the number as a safety margin.

Then write this information down and tape it to the dash-board. This could save you a lot of embarrassment at such places as low bridges, gas stations, and drive-thrus.

Who Drives

When choosing who drives don’t put inexperienced people behind the wheel. In fact, most insurance companies demand that the driver of the vehicle be experienced and at least twenty-one years of age, which prohibits many students from driving. Drivers should carry their licenses, registration(s) and insurance information with them.

And I strongly suggest a minimum of two drivers in the vehicle. An extra “set of eyes” will make driving the shells safer, especially on long trips when one driver gets tired.

Being Vigilant

When you finally hit the road constantly be looking, listening and feeling for anything unusual with the vehicle or load. If you notice anything pull over as soon as it is safe and check for the cause. And speaking of checking, get in the habit of checking the trailer and load every time you stop—on long trips I suggest you stop every 100 miles. Check the tie downs, flags, equipment, lights, hitch and tires for any problems.

Many trailering accidents happen because people try to drive a shell trailer like a car. The acceleration of a trailer is much slower than a car and the stopping distance is much greater. You must allow more time for simple automobile tasks like pulling out into traffic, changing lanes and passing. Extra caution will especially be needed for backing up, cornering and pulling into service areas. Make absolutely sure that a lane is clear before changing, and use your turn signals.

Overhang

The two most difficult parts of driving a shell trailer are cornering and handling the overhang of the shells. Trailers turn inside the track of the tow vehicle meaning you need to take corners wider than normal. But the overhang is what gives most trailer drivers problems. Remember— you may be driving one of the longest vehicles on the highway, with thousands of dollars of shells just hanging out. If you’re not comfortable with this thought—or with your driving skills—load up the trailer one Sunday and go to a parking lot and practice. It’s a good investment of your time, especially considering the alternative may be waiting three months for a boat that’s in the repair shop.

When you finally arrive where you are going plan…Plan…PLAN…ahead where you will park. There’s nothing more annoying then getting blocked in at a regatta and having to wait hours to leave because you’re stuck.

If, after all your best preparations, you are unfortunate enough to have an accident there are several things you should do.

• Activate the emergency flashers and place emergency signals to warn approaching traffic.
• Give appropriate first aid if needed and make sure that everyone is in a safe place.
• Notify law enforcement and your supervisor promptly.
• When things get under control record as much information as possible: names, address, phone numbers, and driver’s license numbers.
• Get information from witnesses. Try to document the scene as well as possible and if you have your camera with you take pictures.

photo by rjseg1

Death of A Shell

(This post is a reprint of an article I wrote for USRowing magazine, published originally in 1993)

I damaged a rowing shell the other day. Well…damaged isn’t quite the right word—OBLITERATED is a little more appropriate.

This destruction was due to an unplanned gymnastics move the shell, which I now call The Late Shell, decided to perform off of our shell trailer. Unfortunately, at the time, the trailer was doing 55 miles per hour on the back roads of Delaware. I can honestly say that this accident was one of the most unexpected and unpleasant experiences we, both the shell and I, have shared in quite a while.

To the best of my knowledge this is not something that happens very often. My insurance adjuster has convinced me of that. It took half-an-hour to persuade him that “No, I wasn’t calling because I had damaged one of my bookshelves” and, “Yes, as wild as it may sound those big pointy boats do actually get put on trailers and moved around from place to place.” But trailering accidents do happen more often than you might think. According to an insurance friend trailering accidents account for at least thirty percent of all damage done to rowing shells.

So this is what happened on that fateful day in Delaware. Driving along I heard a loud noise from behind. Looking back in my mirror I saw the shell lying on the pavement directly in the middle-of-the-road. Cars were swerving every-which-way; not so much to miss the shell but to dodge the flock of personal-injury attorneys who had stopped and were digging for their cards. (Actually some never did stop, they just folded their cards into airplanes and flew them at me.)

So I pulled over. A rowing shell is certainly not the type of thing you leave lying in the middle-of-the road. I’ve seen people drop bags, suitcases and other assorted stuff off of their vehicles, including a three-foot cactus—and keep on driving—probably unaware of what they just lost. But a shell, now that’s different. If you ever drop a shell off a trailer you’ll certainly know it happened.

Well, almost always…apparently several years ago a rowing trailer was returning from a race in Germany, speedily making its way to the coast of France to catch a ferry across the English Channel. When they reached their port the drivers got out and saw they were missing something. Seems that a certain one of those bright-yellow shells fell off their trailer somewhere along their trip, and they were none the wiser. So they made the old “U-turn” and scoured the countryside looking for their boat. After several days of what must have been agonizing driving they located the shell in a farmer’s field. That was the good news. The bad news was the farmer had gutted the boat, filled it full of grain, and was using it to feed his hogs. He said he thought it was some part of a missile that had dropped from the sky and that he might as well put it to good use.

Now this brings up a major hazard of driving a shell trailer on the highways—some drivers just don’t have any idea what you’re moving. Like the fellow who wandered up to me in a gas station in Georgia as I was filling up the truck. He said, “My wife and I are having a little argument. I say that those things on your trailer are helicopter blades. She says I’m nuts. She says they are some sort of garden sculpture. We bet dinner on it—what do you say?” Drivers like these often get distracted looking at the boats and tend not to maintain a safe distance. Of course there are the other extreme of drivers who think you’re transporting some top-secret, destructo-weapon and go to dangerous lengths to avoid you.

Well, back to Delaware. While I was standing smack-dab in the middle of the road (staring at what used to be a happy rowing shell) one of the attorneys flings me his card. “Well, couldn’t get much worse, could it? But if by chance it does get worse give me a call,” he says as he heads to his car to go hunt for bigger game.

It wasn’t until later that I had a chance to think about his comment. Boy, was he wrong—it certainly could have been much worse. Forty-five feet of shell, launched from a trailer at 55 m.p.h. is a force to contend with. Minutes before I was driving on I-95, which in Delaware is about as busy as an ice-cream truck on a one-hundred-degree summer day. If The Late Shell had flown off then it could have been a major catastrophe. Yeah, I was very fortunately there were no injuries, except of course for my bruised ego.

What caused The Late Shell to go flying off of our trailer is still a mystery. The trailer was brand new and so were the straps (tie-downs)—and they were checked and double-checked. The only thing I did not do, and which I usually do, is to stop about twenty miles into the drive and recheck the straps. On long trips I also stop every 100 miles to recheck everything. It makes for a longer drive but then there is usually someone at the rest stop who is happy to wander up and ask, “Hey, what’s on that trailer—a carnival ride?”

The best I can figure is the shell was most likely tied too close to the edge of the rack and the straps were not tight enough. Ahhh—human error—the prime cause of trailering accidents. The road was very bumpy and during the drive there was a horrendously-stiff cross breeze pushing against the shell. All these things probably combined to shove the shell off the trailer.

And the aftermath? Well, we’ve made a couple improvements to the trailer. We now put an extra strap over the front end of all boats which goes around the vertical supports of the rack as well as under the rack itself. Oh…we also got a nice check from the insurance company to replace our bookshelf.

I had almost forgotten about this whole episode until last week when I got a phone call. “Hey, are you that trailer driver? The same driver who destroyed a shell on the highway? You may not remember me but I was one of the sympathetic and helpful bystanders at the accident. Yes…that’s right…one of the guys who gave you a card. Yes…the attorney. Hey, did it turn out anyone was hurt? No, gee that’s too bad…but what about you, you sound rather tired…you know it could be Post-Traumatic-Shell-Destruction Syndrome. Nasty stuff. You may need an attorney…wait…don’t hang u…CLICK…”