Which would you tow with?
 

2004 F250 6.0 diesel automatic 4x4

1999 Mack CH613 427HP 12.0L 10 speed trans

As of right now the boat trailer has vacuum over hydraulic brakes. I have pulled it a few miles locally with the pickup, and no trailer breaks and its obviously not good to do that. I was kicking the idea around of using my mack to pull it. The Mack has plenty of stopping power obviously, but I would be afraid of damaging the trailer/hitch by not having trailer brakes. Thats a lot of weight to put on the ball trying to stop the trailer. Also, The Mack is heavy duty, and I also worry about damage to the hitch from jarring bumps etc. What do you think??

Here is the fleet. Boat is a 40ft Excalibur Hawk, on a Steel target trailer. Boat and trailer have to be around 12-13k lbs.

I am assuming even if you plan to tow with the Mack, you are going to make sure you have the trailer brakes compatible and working. Its mighty impressive pulling up to the marina with a huge as rig. I would not consider anything more than one side of the parking lot to the other with the SD SRW.

I have a 37' boat on an aluminum trailer that is 12,000 lbs. with fuel and gear, and ready to go. I'd have to say that 40 ft. old school Excalibur on a triple steel trailer is approaching 15,000 lbs. rigged and fueled. Dry weight on the boat is 9500 lbs.

Those Excalibur 40's were HEAVY AS $HIT.

No way would I hook one up to an SRW pickup.

Rig the brakes to work on the Mac.

U might consider switching 2 el/hydr instead of the vac/hydr so all U need in any truck is a brake contoller instead of the pump and hose hook ups 4 the vac system! Good luck!

Go with the big truck and set up the trailer brakes to work with it. We are using a Pete 330 to tow a 45 Apache and it is nice being able to cruise down the road without a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. This boat and trailer combo weighs around 21K pounds and the Pete handles it like it is not even there

Does anyone make a hitch that bolts to the frame of a semi?

I have pulled the Excalibur around town with my F250, I was surprised how well it handled the big boat. But the trailer is very well balanced. The tongue weight seems perfect. It doesnt push the truck around like I thought it would. With the brakes on the trailer working it would have been great. But since I have the Mack, I might as well use that because it is safer, and after I put the polished rear fenders on it, it may look real cool pulling the Excalibur.

The Mack will Pulls great when I leave the stone quarry at 73,000 lbs. I probably wont even feel the boat back there.

I had the one for my Freightliner done by a local truck body company. All the RV movers have them on their trucks but I doubt there's anything available off the shelf. Mine is fairly simple- It's 2 pieces of U channel that fits down inside my existing frame rails. It has a crossbar that toes them together on one end and a piece of 3/4" plate all the way across the back. The draw tube pokes out of the plate, then curves upward to the rear crossbar between the rails. My pintle mount bolts on directly above it. It's backed up by another piece of 3/4" plate that's welded on. The pintle mounts to the plate via 4 bolts that thread right into the plate. Then there are two struts that run from the tow plate up to the bottoms of the frame rails that kill any flex it might otherwise have. It all bolts on and it's bulletproof.

I might be able to make one up for ya. I have a reciever here that can be cut up. We make hitch set up's for our Dump trucks at work all the time.