Well everyone today I was hanging with my long time good friend and he had his Striper connected to his F250 ready to go out crabbing tomorrow. After shooting the bull for a few hours I asked if I could try hooking up to his boat and towing it around with the F150. It is a 26' 2006 SeaSwirl Striper. He was all for it so we commenced to getting the right ball hitch installed. (2 and 5/16)

Unfortunately my ball mount was locked on to my receiver and the key was at home. It was a reese 6,000 lb. and had a 2 inch drop. (I would have preferred using the 12,000 lb. ball mount but that wasn't possible) I also would have preferred to turn the receiver around and give it a lift instead of a drop due to the tongue weight of the boat. (approx. 1,000 lbs.) The weight of the boat and trailer with the gear and fuel was approximately 10,000 lbs.

So we ended up hooking up the boat, checked the lights etc. and set out to set the trailer brake settings. I ended up doing about 8 on the gain because his trailer was a electric/hydraulic brake setup.

The boat sitting on the hitch did for sure make the truck squat...not too badly however. I ended up using the new Air Lift LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air bags that my local dealer so nicely installed. I set the pressure initially to about 40 psi which did a nice job of leveling out the bed of the truck. (I ended up going to 60 psi later on the freeway)

Here's a pic of the boat and truck just before setting the tongue on the hitch:



Here is a picture of the sag before the air bags were inflated:



Finally the truck hooked up to the boat:




All I can say about the Egoboost is I am impressed!!

I definitely noticed the boat being towed but in no way felt like the motor was laboring pulling the load and actually had some decent grunt getting that big boat on the freeway. It towed great and stopped without issue. The fact that this boat outweighed the truck by several thousand pounds and how good it handled the load surprised even me.

I now know there will be no problem towing around the 5th wheel we were looking at now! Anyway thought I would share the fun today.

 

Looks like Tom passed the torch to Rob!

Nice write and pics rob, reps sent.

 

I beg to differ.. In addition to towing the boat, Tom would've had 5k lbs of gravel in the bed and would've driven up a 10% grade, keeping the truck floored.

All this with a cell phone videotaping the whole thing in one hand, and a Turkey sandwich in the other..

 

Very nice Rob

I towed 7-8k lbs with my Eco last fall and was real impressed with how she handled it.

 

Awesome write up great to know! If I knew how to rep from the phone I would because this gives me the 'all clear' in terms of my boat shopping.

One question, what gears do you have?

 

Thanks everyone!

Tom passing the torch?...nah I agree this is no where near what he put his truck through. Now if they allowed me to pull two space shuttles...hmm...

This really helped me see how my truck will handle (to a degree) with that much weight behind it. Although the brake controller would act differently with fully electric brakes...the trailer stopped fine. (it had a tad bit of delay before you could feel the trailer braking) His trailer had a hydraulic pump on top that would pressurize to apply the trailer brakes. (odd)

Due to having the two inch drop I really needed to use the airbags to level things out. I did try taking off at a rather spirited launch to hear those turbos sing and she didn't disappoint.

 

LOL and ditto!

 

Thanks brother!