After purchasing my first boat recently, I became curious about what I would need in order to transport it with my small SUV. Do all boat trailers come with brakes for this purpose, or would I need to make other arrangements while on the road? I did all of the research to find these answers and put it together in this article.
So, do boat trailers have brakes? When it comes to transporting your boat by attaching it to the back of your car, the boat itself will not have brakes that you can use when you need to stop your vehicle. The trailer that the boat is attached to will have the brakes.
The trailer brakes for a boat can come in a few different variations, and will usually connect to the automobile somehow in order to receive a signal of when to stop.
If you have ever seen a boat in front of someone else’s house or on the back of a truck in the road next to you, you might have noticed that the boat moved with the vehicle and stopped with it as well, almost as if the two were internally connected.
Most people might assume that there are brakes on the boat that provide this stopping function, but it actually comes from the trailer that it is attached to. Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about the concept of boats braking.
Do Boats Have Brakes?
When it comes to transporting a boat on the back of another vehicle, there is the obvious need to be able to control the stopping functions of the boat.
The ability to stop the boat in the road is just as important as being able to move it as it trails along behind your vehicle.
While most people might assume that the boat itself will have some kind of brake that will help it to stop on command, this is not true. Instead, the braking function comes from the trailer underneath that it is attached to.
There are three main types of brakes for the trailer that is connected to a boat, which are outlined in the list below.
Types Of Brakes For Boats:
- Electric brakes
- Surge brakes
- Air brakes
The three types of boat trailer brakes are defined as electric, surge, and air brakes. All of these braking systems use different methods to stop the boat on the command of the driver, and are all connected to the vehicle that leads the boat.
We will go over the processes that each of these braking systems go through in the next section.
How Trailer Brakes Work For a Boat
To elaborate on the information that was provided in the previous section, we will be discussing each of the boat braking systems in detail, including what methods they use in order to stop the boat and the functions that they carry out.
The lists that are contained in this section will give you a brief outline of each of the braking systems of boat trailers, with a further explanation underneath each one. Keep reading to find out everything you need to know about the individual processes of the brakes that help to stop boats on command.
How Electric Brakes Work:
- Connected to the battery of the vehicle
- Draws power from this battery source
- Composed of a simple lever system
- Uses an electromagnet to perform these functions
- Brake shoes inside of brakes are attracted by magnet
- Similar to drum brakes in a car
We will begin this discussion with electric brakes. These are the most common brakes that are used for boats, and will be seen more often than any of the others. This method of braking includes drawing power from the battery source of the vehicle.
This is done through a direct connection between the boat and the battery of the car or truck that is pulling it. The inside of the actual braking system, more specifically, is composed of a simple lever system.
Basically, the lever system is operated by an electromagnet that exists inside of the brakes. The magnet will attract the tiny brake shoes that are contained within each of the brakes.
When the shoes are attracted toward the larger electromagnet, they create friction against the wheels of the trailer on the outside of the boat. At the end of this process, the boat and trailer will come to a complete stop.
This braking system can be most directly compared to the drum braking system that exists in some cars. To give a little bit of a background on this topic, there are two separate braking systems that exist in vehicles today, similar to the variation that is found in boat trailers.
While drum brakes are not the most commonly occurring braking systems in the modern day, they can still be found in certain vehicles. The drum braking system consists of tiny brake shoes throughout the two brakes in the back of the car.
When the brake shoes are moved into a certain direction against the lining of the drums that they are held in, they create friction against the wheels of the vehicle, allowing them to come to a slow and complete stop, just like how the electric brakes of a boat trailer work.
Again, the electric braking system is the most common that you will find among boats, however, you still might come across a surge or air braking system, which will be described in more detail throughout the rest of this section.
How Surge Brakes Work:
- Also known as hydraulic surge brakes
- Master cylinder releases fluid and moves throughout system
- Fluid and movements work to stop the wheels under the boat
Surge brakes, also known as hydraulic surge brakes, are comprised mostly of a fluid within the system. This fluid is used to apply pressure throughout the system, very similar to braking fluid within the braking systems of automobiles.
The process that surge brakes go through begins with a master cylinder that releases fluid and moves throughout the system. Once again, this is very similar to the regular process that car brakes will go through when they release the brake fluid and it applies force to different components to move them around accordingly.
The fluid that is released from the master cylinder will move in a very similar fashion in order to manipulate the pieces of the braking system and ultimately stop the wheels under the boat.
This is another one of the common braking systems that are used to stop boats, but the electric system is still the most universal.
How Air Brakes Work:
- Uses air pressure to stop the wheels under the boat
- Brake shoes inside control each of the wheels
Last but not least, air brakes in a boat use the power of air pressure to stop the wheels in motion, instead of magnets or liquids. This kind of system uses high levels of pressure to move around the components of the brakes in order to slow down the vehicle.
Air braking systems are also composed of tiny brake shoes that are inside of each of the brakes within the car, which are usually found behind each of the tires. When the brake shoes are pushed up against the lining of the object that holds them, there is a friction applied to the tires that ultimately causes them to stop.
As you can see, the brakes that are used to stop a boat do not necessarily come from the boat itself, but on the trailer that holds it instead.