[Slalomskier]

Hello TS users,

There's a lot of experienced off-roaders here so here's my question with a bit of background.

I need to back my boat down my yard to a lake.
It is 15 degrees or 27% grade-surveyed it (then I have a flat run-out on the top and bottom).
It's about a 75 ft long slope.
I have an unmodified 2001 V8 access cab with Yokahama AT's that are good but not new (~75%).
Boat and trailer are 4000 pounds loaded.
Trailer has hydraulic brakes so I guess I could actuate the trailer brakes to slow things down a LITTLE (drum trailer brakes).
The yard has been "modified" so I can't dig in more than 1" (geosynthetics underneath designed to be driven on).
My intent is to put on a front receiver hitch, mount a winch to it to prevent from sliding down the hill.
I only need to do this 3 - 4 times a year and intend to take the front winch off when not in use (weight, winch wear, looks, don't want to mod the front springs) but leave the front hitch mounted.
I have a good anchor point on the top of the hill.
When you get done laughing, please give me an honest opinion of winch size and anything I may have overlooked - excluding a trip to the liquor store!
The winch rule seems to be 1.5x the weight of the load which puts me around 14000 pounds). Seems a bit of overkill considering it's a rolling load and the brakes do about enough to stop the truck and the truck can drive up the slope without a winch with no boat.
Thanks for your patience, but I figure why waste someone's time with lack of info. Incidentally, I estimate this rolling load on the slope at constant speed to be just under 3000 pounds of dead load.
THANK YOU FOR THE HELP!!:ts:

 

[dyogim]

With a 9000lb winch, if you double the line, the limit doubles. For example, winch line from the truck to a pulley at the anchor point back to a towing point on your truck should double the winch capacity. There's a few companies offering front mounted hitches. Search for the board to check out members thoughts. I had one from Warn. It was definitely usefull and was inconcievable.

Have you thought about some type of traction upgrade, Powertrax No-slip locker, ARB, Detroit Tractec, etc?

 

[rambrush]

Have you thought about a receiver hitch up front? Hook the boat up front, put the winch in the receiver out back. make your life easier.
Running a 2 part line really slows things down, Ramsey or warn make pretty good units compare line speeds at different wraps. look at amp load as well.
I would think a 9000lb unit would be fine for such short haul application. (May have to go 12000 depending on umph at not many wraps on spool) Generally recomend more umph if stuck in a rut or mud. course that slope has to be taken into account as well.

 

[sbsyncro]

I've done a fair amount of winching, but I have to say this is a new one for me.

Seriously, why even introduce the truck into the equation? Why not just permanently rig some sort of davit (with built in pulleys) to a fixed point near your boat shed (or take-out point) and just winch from there? For this sort of scenario I would think a 9,000lb winch would be sufficient, with no need to double the line up (the comment about it slowing the line down is right - you would likely die of boredom before you winched it the entire 75 feet!). Also keep in mind that most winch spools only hold about 100' to 150' of line (unless they have suddenly changed in the last 10 years since I bought a new winch)

Using the truck seems to be complicating things unnecessarily, unless there is something else important about having he truck doing the winching...

 

[rambrush]

I beleive a key equation is the flat area below the slope. How wide long is that? would a remote mounted winch work?
how bout some pics of this?

 

[Slalomskier]

Thanks for the input! It sounds as though the front winch on a hitch should work; based on comments since nobody said "no way".

Double line would keep winch costs down, but I don't think I have the patience for it.

The flat area at the bottom is about 40ft - I assume rambrush is implying a running start for coming back up-not much there considering the rig is about 40ft long.

Part of the reason I have not taken the truck out of the equation, is that I need to get the truck down to push the boat/trailer into the water, so I figured why not just put it down at one time. The other reason is that the path is about 20 ft at the top, narrows to 10 ft in the middle for a distance of 30 or 35 ft at which point one side of the path is a 3ft wall and the other side is an embankment perpendicular to the slope (trailer width is about 8'2"). But maybe removing the truck is still viable-where to mount the winch though... Maybe connect the cable to the winch stand which is welded; if I took the truck out. Then I would have to mount a "spare tire" and hub carrier to the tongue to keep the tongue from dragging-although maybe line tension would keep the tongue from dragging but I would not want to count on that.

I like the front hitch to boat idea, but considering the tongue weight is around 250 pounds with the hitch, would this feel or be a bit precarious looking down a slope with the front weighted and leaning down from tongue weight? - I don't know, maybe not because the back would have winch weight and a cable...??

As far as traction mods go, I am trying to not get into that since this is the only "off-road" condition I really encounter outside of an occasional drive across a flat field, snow in winter and "natural" launches at occasional lakes---not really off-road to an enthusiast.

Thanks for the input! I'll try and snap a pic looking down the path. I'll also plan on taking a drive up it with no load tonight-just a sanity check. 4 wheel low of course.

So to confirm and assuming this is the way to go, a 9000-10000 lb winch should do? (I could hire a wrecker to winch me down but I would prefer to run on my own schedule and I figure the payback is about 2-3 years.
THANKS! I'll get a pic.

 

[rambrush]

I was actually wondering about the remote winch and that it would not work due to the flat at the bottom.

Plus the 75' plus the 40 runs the winch out pretty far.

The 250 on front sounds ok for that short of run.

Just the winch and bumper that I am putting on mine adds like 275 on front. Having to respring to handle it.

much better control steering etc having the boat hooked up front and winch out back.

 

[Crx722]

if you are trying to keep from slipping, try 4lo before spending a couple grand

 

[cupidstoy]

ohh, we gotta see a pic or two of this!....

i'd like to see the shot staring down the hood of the truck with boat hooked in front and lake in the back ground.

and what exactly is a "geosynthetic underneath designed to be driven on"? is that something like a nylon mat buried under ground? i wouldn't expect that to hold up to a lot of wheel spin or lateral forces parallel to the ground. i'm envisioning a carton tom and jerry with a carpet rolling out from under their spinning feet.

i would also note that the type of slope we are talking about is going to change the loading on the hitch and tires a bit. you aren't merely towing a flat load of 4000 lbs, it's partially "dangling" from the hitch. in other words, i'm not sure a hitch that is designed to tow (start, stop maintain a constant speed) rated at 5,000 lbs is also designed to suspend that much weight.

not trying to scare you. just make sure your insurance is good and you use lots of safety devices (big chains, straps and cables) to secure everything for the trip up and down.

good luck and please do post some pics. i live in the ozarks and may have do a similar thing some day!

 

[rambrush]

I have seen similar products used in School yards so we can drive fire apparatus in without destroying the field. Works pretty good.

I also think a dash cam would be cool, watching the boat go into the water winch out back spooling out.

 

[2qik2see]

this would be AWSOME to watch! i'm very interested in this as well. when i go back to west virginia we do a lot of fishing in the rivers and in west virginia your either going up or down. do you have a video recorder? this is very interesting.

:tu: :tu: :tu:

 

[Crx722]

so no on the four low? lol

 

[2qik2see]

lol! :d :d :d