nickap
Member
- Sep 17, 2017
- 75
Just came back from a great camping trip to Cape Cod ... I had a scary experience on the way down there though -- my first incident of fishtailing. I was sailing happily along the highway, probably a few MPH faster than I ideally should have been, but had never had any troubles before so I'll admit that I wasn't being as careful as I should. At one point I felt a slight left-right motion of the steering wheel, which went away after a second or two. But 15 minutes later it happened again, and this time, over just a few seconds it went from very slight to almost completely out of control. Trying to keep the wheel straight, I saw in my mirror that the PUP was slewing wildly from side-to-side ... Never having experienced this before, I didn't know the "approved" response but I braked as smoothly as I could while trying to keep the wheel straight, and once the trailer brakes kicked in and I lost a little speed, the PUP quickly came back in line. You can imagine I drove much more carefully, and several MPH slower, after that.
So this is obviously a case of inexperienced driver being stupid and careless -- definitely a learning experience for me, I'll absolutely keep my speed down from now on. But it did make me wonder what exactly caused the fishtailing on this trip, and not on previous ones, since admittedly I had probably also driven at times faster on those trips than I should have. There was a little wind the day of the Cape Cod trip, which may have been part of the problem, but it wasn't severe. The only other difference was this: for once, I had pre-cooled my fridge properly before the trip, and so instead of bringing all my stuff in a cooler and then transferring it to the fridge later at the campsite, I put some of it in the fridge before I set out. It wasn't much - a couple of bottles of ketchup etc., some veggies, some eggs, cheese - basically I can't imagine that it could have been more than a few pounds. The fridge is at the very back of the PUP though. Could such a small amount of additional weight in the rear cause the PUP to fishtail? I've seen people saying that a bike rack on the rear can do it, but this had to have been much less weight than that ... I'd be interested to get folks' opinions; I can keep the fridge empty when on the road if necessary, but it would be helpful to know that I could safely put a few things in there if necessary ...
So this is obviously a case of inexperienced driver being stupid and careless -- definitely a learning experience for me, I'll absolutely keep my speed down from now on. But it did make me wonder what exactly caused the fishtailing on this trip, and not on previous ones, since admittedly I had probably also driven at times faster on those trips than I should have. There was a little wind the day of the Cape Cod trip, which may have been part of the problem, but it wasn't severe. The only other difference was this: for once, I had pre-cooled my fridge properly before the trip, and so instead of bringing all my stuff in a cooler and then transferring it to the fridge later at the campsite, I put some of it in the fridge before I set out. It wasn't much - a couple of bottles of ketchup etc., some veggies, some eggs, cheese - basically I can't imagine that it could have been more than a few pounds. The fridge is at the very back of the PUP though. Could such a small amount of additional weight in the rear cause the PUP to fishtail? I've seen people saying that a bike rack on the rear can do it, but this had to have been much less weight than that ... I'd be interested to get folks' opinions; I can keep the fridge empty when on the road if necessary, but it would be helpful to know that I could safely put a few things in there if necessary ...