Land vehicles – Wheeled – Articulated vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2002-06-11
2004-04-13
Hurley, Kevin (Department: 3611)
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Articulated vehicle
C414S495000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06719317
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to land vehicles, and more particularly to wheeled, articulated vehicles constructed to accommodate a boat for transport. In an even more particular manifestation, the invention pertains to self-loading pontoon boat trailers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Boats of all sorts and types, used variously for leisure, sport and commerce, are transported upon an equally diverse collection of trailers. Trailers offer a number of benefits over transporting a boat directly upon an automobile, sport utility vehicle, pick-up truck, flat-bed truck, or the like. Among these benefits are loading and unloading the boat at an elevation closer to the ground; the ability to unload the boat directly into a waterway and reload the boat therefrom while still maintaining vehicle drive wheels upon dry ground for good traction; ready storage by simply unhitching the trailer from the vehicle, with associated rapid and simple retrieval from storage; and the ability to load and transport boats much longer than the motor vehicle. Since in some instances the boats are loaded or unloaded on a daily basis, these trailers most preferably simplify the loading and unloading process.
One of the more common techniques for supporting a boat upon a trailer uses rollers, which assist a person greatly with the loading and unloading of the boat. A hand or powered winch may be provided which draws the boat onto and across the rollers. Since the rollers are able to roll across the exterior of the boat, such as along the keel or along the port or starboard undersides, there is almost no scraping or sliding of the boat which would otherwise damage the boat, and there is very little force required to move the boat over the rollers. Consequently, a winch and cable may be hand-turned in many instances, and such winch and cable are generally relatively low cost commodity items.
While the rollers tend to simplify the loading and unloading of a boat, they do not provide good support for the boat. This is because the rollers normally have very little surface area in contact with the boat hull. At the point of contact, the forces placed upon the boat bull by the total weight of the boat and contents may cause the boat hull to deform. Even absent noticeable deformation, the stresses generated adjacent a roller tend to be very high, leading to premature failure of the boat hull. While additional contact may be obtained with the use of more rollers, which would thereby reduce the stress between the boat and any given roller, rollers tend to be relatively expensive. Consequently, supporting more than a very minor amount of surface area on the boat with rollers is cost prohibitive.
In contrast, another common technique for supporting a boat upon a trailer uses bunks, which are solid surfaces against which a boat hull is rested. In the case of a bunk trailer, the boat hull is solidly supported across the entire bunk, rather than across a few square inches of roller. Since the bunk is very low-cost, typically comprising little more than a beam having a non-marring surface, the cost of supporting a large surface area is quite small. This in turn leads to much better transport, including a substantial reduction in the stress forces generated within the boat hull and a resultant reduction in the likelihood for damage to the boat during transport. Unfortunately, this type of trailer creates much greater friction between the bunk and boat during loading and unloading, thereby necessitating a much more powerful winch. Additionally, should any foreign particles or devices or substances work their way between the boat hull and the bunk, these particles may cause substantial damage to the boat hull.
In some cases, prior art trailers are designed to accommodate several different types of boats with distinct hull designs. However, most trailers are designed for only one or a limited few types of boat hulls. For example, a trailer designed to carry a typical fishing boat will be shaped to accommodate the relatively deep keel and steeply sloping sides of the boat. In contrast, a shallow water boat or jon boat is designed with a relatively flat bottom. Consequently, a carrier designed to receive the keel and steep sides of a fishing boat will not receive and support a flat-bottom boat. The same holds true for other diverse types of boats, such as catamarans and pontoon boats, each which also have unique hull designs. These and other types of boats have consequently required specific trailer designs or accommodations.
In the specific case of a pontoon boat, the boat will generally include two or more pontoons, which are elongated tubes that may typically be sealed and hold air or another gas therein. Most commonly, across the top of the pontoons there will be attached a deck which supports passengers, a boat engine, and other various components, while simultaneously fixing the position of the pontoons relative to each other.
Pontoon boats have presented some challenges to trailer design that are relatively unique, for which desirable solutions have heretofore been elusive. Among these are the wide spacing of the pontoons. The pontoons, which are generally among the lowest components of a boat, are placed adjacent the edges of the deck in order to provide optimum floatation for passengers who may also be standing adjacent the deck edge. This spacing between pontoons makes for safer boating. Unfortunately, it also makes trailer design somewhat more difficult than with other types of boat hulls. This is because any support for a boat upon a trailer will most preferably be at the outer edges of the boat, so that as the trailer is turning a corner, for example, the boat is securely supported and does not tip over. Unfortunately, in the case of a pontoon boat and bunk trailer, support adjacent the outer edges of the boat also means raising the boat somewhat more off of the ground than would be required for a support more centrally located. Consequently, the elevated support may tend to be more difficult to load, and will typically require a relatively deep boat landing in order for the trailer to drop far enough for the pontoons to float off of the trailer.
Further limitation stems from the fact that unloading the boat from a prior art bunk trailer upon dry land is only practical if the operator has access to a small fork lift, skid steer or the like. The weight of a pontoon boat is measured in the thousands of pounds. The pontoons themselves, when resting upon the bunks, will not readily slide. Loading presents the same dilemma, since the pontoons will not slide along the earth. Consequently, an automobile will more readily slide along the ground than the pontoon boat. Winching the boat onto the trailer is therefore not practical.
To resolve these difficulties, another type of trailer has been designed specifically for pontoon boats, referred to in the prior art as a scissors-type trailer. Scissors trailers operate similar to a scissors jack, where the movement of a screw is used to separate or bring together two base elements. The spreading of these base elements will generally lower the trailer top, and a boat supported thereon, closer to the ground. Bringing the elements together will, through the scissors mechanism, raise the top of the trailer and the supported pontoon boat. With these scissors trailers, several distinct benefits and advantages are obtained in the transport of pontoon boats that are not available with bunk trailers. Most important to many pontoon boat owners is the ability to load and unload the pontoon boat in extremely shallow waters, or directly from the ground. Rephrased, the scissors trailer is designed to slip in the space between pontoons immediately under the deck, and then is used to jack the pontoons upward off of the ground or out of the water sufficiently to allow the boat to be transported safely. Unfortunately, since the trailer must first pass between the pontoons, the transverse distance across the trailer between wheels
Grovender David L.
Grovender Donald J.
Hurley Kevin
Watkins Albert W
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