Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

The Ontario Police Commercial Vehicle Committee tweeted a demonstration of trailer weight distributions. I had no idea things could get out of hand so quickly...

https://twitter.com/opcvc/status/778838710964002817

Man ... that is awesome. And scary! Makes me want to stop loading down the rear galley with all those cabinets :p

Wow... Glad I went 70/30 with my axle instead of 60/40.

That is scary, but, what is it telling us as far as ratio of tongue weight to total and axle placement? I'm at 1250# total with about 170# tongue weight. My axle is 35% from rear of frame (and that doesn't include tongue box or tongue, just main camper structure on the 5x8 frame).

When folks are describing their axle placement in terms of percent from back and front of trailer are they disregarding the trailer in front of the trailer bed as I did?

In the video it seems that that is a considerable hit to the rear of the trailer if scaled up.

If my physics sources are correct (I'm including a non-technical one below), trailer sway is a function of weight distribution, speed, and tow vehicle/trailer weight ratio. Other factors play in, of course, but those seem to be the big three ...

Basically, any time the center of mass is behind the rear axle, the trailer sway may lead to unbalanced "fishtailing" where the swaying gets progressively worse. This won't necessarily happen at any speed, however. The below article argues that, for a given trailer/tow vehicle combo, there's a speed threshold. Once you go too fast, you run the risk of catastrophe. Looks like towing below 60 mph and using trailer brakes or a trailer sway control hitch will help with unbalanced trailers.

I'm going to have to look into this more. Really important stuff.

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/tow-me-down-1609112611