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On 11 Dec 2003 10:48:51 -0800, (basskisser) wrote:

(Steven Shelikoff) wrote in message ...
On 11 Dec 2003 04:38:54 -0800, (basskisser) wrote:

(Steven Shelikoff) wrote in message ...
On 10 Dec 2003 09:00:31 -0800, (basskisser) wrote:

K Smith wrote in message ...
Snafu wrote:
Gary, I'm not understanding the part about "the longer the tongue, the
furthur back we can put the wheels." To maintain the ~10% of the weight on
the hitch rule, increasing the tongue length works the opposite way.

Absolutely the longer the tongue (drawbar?) the further "forward" the
wheels will by to keep the balance right.

Once again, you've proven you stick your nose where it doesn't belong.
You certainly don't understand simple physics. If you make the tongue
longer, you will need to move the wheels BACK to keep the balance the
same. Say you have the tongue 10' from the wheels, and the tongue
weight is 100 pounds, to say, at that 10', you need to resist 100
pounds to lift the tongue. Now, we extend the tongue, to 15'. Now you
have a longer lever, thereby LESS tongue weight. To compensate, you
need to move the wheels BACK.

It really pains me to see the lack of understanding of basic physics by
a lot of people that this thread has exposed. For example, take the
argument above. Both of you may be right, both of you may be wrong, you
can't tell from the information given. In the specific example above of
a tongue weight of 100lbs with a tongue length of 10' from axle to
hitch, if you extend the tongue another 5' you may have to move the axle
forward, backward, or not at all to keep that 100lb hitch weight.
That's because in addition to changing the lever length, the weight on
the hitch also depends on what the weight of the additional 5' of tongue
did to the balance point. Since that hasn't been specified, the answer
is unknown.

The tongue would have to be made out of something VERY heavy, lead
perhaps, to to make up for the additional lever arm from the fulcrum
point. Basically, a foot of tongue would have to weigh the same as a
foot of the boat and trailer.

Bzzzzt! Wrong answer. It doesn't matter what a foot of the boat and
trailer weigh. The fact that it's wrong can be demonstrated very simply
by taking the problem to an extreme. Say in your example above that
your boat and trailer weighs 10,000 lbs and it's balanced so that the
hitch weight is only 1 lb. If you add 5' to the tongue, you are almost
gauranteed to *increase* the hitch weight unless you use some sort of
space aged material that weighs less then 1lb for the entire extension.

The boat and trailer could weight 1000 lbs/foot and you still would
significantly increase the hitch weight if the extension only weighed 1
lb/foot.

Uh, no...let's see if YOU want to play the game. Find in the above
where you are in HUGE error. Hint: The c.g. of the boat/trailer has
not changed in relation to the fulcrum.

Are you actually trying to say that if I have a boat/trailer that weighs
10,000 lbs and the hitch is 10' from the axle and the hitch weight is
1lb, then I add an extension on the end of the tongue to increase the
hitch to axle distance to 15' and the hitch extension weighs a million
pounds, that I have not changed the location of the cg of the
boat/trailer in relation to the fulcrum, which is the axle?

If that's what you're trying to say, then I can only reiterate my
original point, which is that it's amazing to me the lack of
understanding of simple physics from quite a few posters that this
thread has brought to light.

Steve