Towing a 3.5-tonne boat rig was usually a headache for Per Harrtoft, then he found a genius Norwegian trailer that makes launching completely effortless
Life afloat brings you into contact with all sorts of equipment – and my fondness for it is evident from the amount of kit I carry on my boats. Naturally then, I closely follow the various kit reviews, not least here in MBY. But every now and then, you come across some boating gear that solves its task in such an innovative way that it’s difficult not to speak up.
The problem
One of my core requirements for boating with Iron Explorer, my Iron 827 Coupé, is that it has to be towable at 80km/h while remaining manageable and practical to handle, despite the weight of a 3.5-tonne trailer.
The bare boat weighs around 1,700kg, but once you add the engine and onboard equipment, plus water and fuel for both engine and heater, you quickly approach 2,400kg. A 3.5-tonne trailer typically allows a payload of about 2,600kg, and I have no intention of exceeding that limit and risking illegal towing.
Over the years, I’ve used several trailers: first for our Flipper 620, then for a Buster Magnum, and later we bought a trailer with an electric winch for Iron Explorer. It worked reasonably well. But the trailer we encountered at Iron Brothers in Mölndal – the one Iron Explorer sat on when I first came to inspect her – was something entirely different.
It was a Norwegian-built trailer from Svela, featuring a simple yet remarkably clever design. The name Svela is from the founder Sverre Larsen. To the best of my knowledge, they have no dealer in Britain, but I feel certain that will change.
Multiple soft rollers of tilting axles help spread the load and adapt to fit the shape of the hull
The solution
At the rear of the frame sits an exceptionally long cradle, supported by a pivoting axle that tilts as the boat rolls up and down it. But the real stroke of genius lies in the support wheels. They are mounted in pairs on axles that rotate around a tubular shaft, allowing them to adapt to the hull shape.
The boat’s weight is then distributed across many wheels, meaning each wheel carries far less load than on traditional trailers, where most of the weight is concentrated on a few pairs of much harder side rollers and two or three directly under the keel.
On my trailer there are five rows of paired wheels on each side of the keel, which are adjustable in height if the boat has a deeper keel. That’s a total of 28 wheels sharing roughly equal load, making the boat remarkably easy to roll on and off.
Ahead of the main cradle is a smaller cradle built on the same principle, with four wheels mounted in pairs on individual rotating shafts, again adapting perfectly to the hull and adjustable for height. Right at the front sits a conventional bow support, which is adjustable fore-and-aft to achieve the correct weight on the trailer coupling.
There are attachment points for guide poles both fore and aft, but even without them, the winch pulls the boat straight if it comes in slightly off-centre. Perhaps the many low-load wheels help here too but, either way, the difference compared to trailers I’ve used before is really striking.
The trailer comes with an aluminium box housing the winch battery, as well as tie-down straps to secure the boat. It feels genuinely cutting-edge – outstanding in performance, yet elegantly simple in execution – and when that happens, I can’t help but admire it. So when the penny dropped, I sold my old trailer and ordered a new Svela trailer from Norway.
The model I use for Iron Explorer is the Svela B35 MAXE9. It’s rated for boats of up to 32ft, with a payload of 2,565kg and a weight of exactly 3,500kg. And just to underline my satisfaction, when my son Martin later bought his Iron 907, he too ended up with a Svela trailer!
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