San Juan 21 Class Association

All,

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I have acquired an SJ21 aptly named "Ambition" that I am rehabilitating, and hope to get on the water this season.

In Ohio, you have to know the weight of the trailer, without the boat, to get a license plate. Does anyone know this?

Thanks in advance...

Tom Rockhold
N0OGS

There seems to be a lot of variation in SJ 21 trailers so it probably depends on how old your trailer is. A good guess though would be around 800 lbs.

Michigan has the same rules, but the cutoff for the next weight class is 2500 pounds. Knowing that both boat and trailer would weigh less than 2500 pounds, I just went to my local truckstop Cat scale and weighed them both. The weight slip was enough to satisfy our requirements. That option might work for you, too.

Bob: Very good guess!

I bought & built a "kit" trailer in 1991 - It is a galvanized single axle (no brakes) trailer, originally intended for a 19' powerboat, but with some creative modifications to the bunks, it works great for my SJ 21 Mk II. To license the "homebuilt" trailer, I too had to bring it to the public scale and get it weighed (they gave me a slip of paper, with the "official" weight). It tipped the scales at 620 lbs. After adding a spare tire, and wider bunks, it probably weighs more - could be close to 800 lbs.

This is a bit off-topic, but at first, I was worried about total weight of boat/trailer/gear - trailer at 620 lbs, hull at 1500+ lbs, and I'm definitely over 2000 lbs (class 1 trailer limit). The axle is rated for class 2 - 3500 lbs. Lucky for me, in the state of Washington, with no brakes, the trailer must not exceed 40% of the tow vehicles gross weight. So I tow with a full sized van (5800 lbs) and I get away with no brakes (one more thing I don't have to maintain!), which is great, because I launch a lot in salt water.

Jeff
#2208