Axis Wakeboard Boat Forum

Are you winching it up all the way until the bow eye is against the roller or are you just winching until the hull touches the roller and a couple more clicks? There's a big difference between just winching until the hull touches the roller and where the bow eye touches the roller. On my A22 and A24 once the hull touches the roller I can still crank the winch about 6"-8" more strap to get the bow eye snug onto the roller. I've let a buddy or two of mine winch my boat up and they stopped barely after the hull touches and when I get out I see the gap you guys are referring to then I have to back the boat back In the water to crank up the winch even more.

This is the same thing that used to happen on my A22. You have to make sure the bow eye is against the roller.

I'm not saying winch the boat while out of the water, just pull the trailer forward a foot or two and then winch.

This all depends on the angle of the launch. If it is steeper than optimal you can have the boat making contact with the front bunks and fully winched to the roller while floating above the bunks by the guides. This would lead to the bow making contact with the roller at the wrong point, because the boat and trailer are at different angles. If he is using power to get the bow all the way to the roller, and winching it all the way tight, the boat and trailer should be making full contact along the entire boat length. In this situation I don't see how the boat would move back, unless the lock on the winch is not set.

Do you need to use a lot of power to load the entire way? Or is it just to get those last few inches? Once contact is made at the roller, you wont be able to power the boat into raising the bow and lowering the transom. You could also experiment with keeping some weight in different parts of the boat.

Almost sounds like they are on a shallow angle ramp and not backing down far enough making the boat contact the bunks real early thus needing quite a bit of power to move up on the trailer. I primarily use a medium angled ramp and my 2WD Ram 2500 I back down to where the rear tires barely touch the water and loading is a breeze. My other ramp is shallow angle and I have to back in almost to the hubs of my 22" wheels...so ramps do make a difference when compared to each other. With shallow angled ramps I backup far enough to get the trailer dolly jack almost completely underwater to make loading easy without having to power onto the trailer. Finding out what works for each ramp is just local lake knowledge and takes a few trips to each to learn a routine that works. Part of the learning curve, no big deal.

No problems here on my 16 A20. I'm always with my crew so I drive it on and someone hooks it and winds it up as I'm slowly throttling up. Eye touches the roller. When we pull out boat drops back 1/2" or so from roller.

I was pulling up until the bow just touched the roller and the winch strap was tight. The bow eye was not close up to the roller, it was down lower a bit. I think, as AJwest stated, that I need the get my trailer deeper in the water.

And yes, I think I have a shallow angle launch ramp. I was told by the dealer that I should have my trailer in the water up the the point that the front of the fenders are just barely in the water. I think that leaves a portion of the short front bunks out of the water.

I'm planning to go out tomorrow evening. I'll let everyone know how it works out.

Sounds about right about your reference to your fenders and front bunks, probably go in a few inches deeper and you'll be good. Just an inch of bunk sticking out of the water or just as they disappear.

I'm going to go another direction. If you can, have someone watch as you back down the ramp to launch. Have them let you know when the boat starts to float. Take note of what part of your trailer is submerged and that should give you a good idea where you should be when you load. I have yet to power load my A20. Floating the boat and winching gets it done.

This can be a common problem and is really dependent on the slope of the ramp. I have two lakes we go to with high slope so I winch all the way to bow roller only to find that I am 2-3 inches shy once on level ground. Usually a quick brake press when leaving the ramp on slight down hill will bring the boat forward. I then jump out of the truck and winch tight. I have had this issue at these lakes with 3 different boats and this has always worked for me.

We also have a 16 A20 with a shallow launch. The first time I backed it down I watched for when it started to float, or you can have a buddy do like gixxer said, but you will be able to tell when its floating, just take it slow that time. Just try to get back to that spot each time and you will be able to drive it on (not powering it on - think more get it dialed exactly where you want it and throttle to neutral or cut the engine just before your bow tip enters the guide poles) and crank it with the bow eye virtually touching the rollers. Never had my fall back more than a half inch doing it that way. You can power load but at some point someone will likely yell at you and tell you not to. Especially where I am since it creates huge holes in the dirt. The concrete only goes so far into the lake that we go to before you are off of it.