smokeywren

Old farmer's way:


1. Load the jetski in the carrier with the carrier plugged into the receiver.


Drive to any place that has a scale of some type that will weigh a 6,000-pound pickup. Cotton gin, grain elevator, junk iron buyer, moving and storage company warehouse, or even a CAT scale at a truck stop.


Weigh the pickup with the mounted jetski. This is called your gross weight.


2. Remove the jetski from the pickup and the carrier. Plug the carrier back into the receiver. Do not remove any other weight from the pickup, and don't add any weight either.


Drive to the same scale you used to weigh when the jetski was on the carrier.


Weigh the pickup with the carrier but without the jetski. This is called your tare weight.


3, The difference in the gross weight and tear weight is the weight of the jetski.


Expect some scale error. A CAT scale that can weigh 30.000 pounds or more on each scale pad can have 20 to 50 pounds error. When adjusting my WD hitch, I weighed once without the spring bars tight, then a minute later weighed again but this time with the spring bars tight. Same exact rig should weigh the same a minute later. But my gross weight was 10,400 one time and 10,420 the next. So that scale had a 20-pounds scale error. Part of that error is caused by the CAT scale rounding weights on each pad to the nearest 10 pounds. (If you study your CAT-scale tickets, you'll notice that all of the weights end in zero. My weights during a long RV trip to the east coast last year were


Steer = 3,360
Drive = 3,840
Trailer = 4,220
Gross = 11,420

winchested

Um? Covering up the headlights with a jetski should be 100% illegal and unsafe no?

Feathermerchant

Not to mention the turn signals.

berty

And license plate! Ohio is a 2 plate state.

Suzuki14258

Ya I don't see how that would be legal at all, plus blocking all of your coolers.

nagata

BAM - I've pondered this same dilemma (except with a WB2 rather than a standup), and the only viable approach I came up with would be to put the ski in the bed. I ended up not doing it, friends picked up tow vehicles so we just take everything to the lakes, but with your standup the bed should be quite viable since it's small and lightweight. Sure, you'll lose some bed space (hopefully you have a 6.5' bed & an extender?), but you can use a carrier on your front hitch to haul some stuff that would've gone in the bed. The front load would then be smaller & lighter.

Nice to see a fellow Columbus resident who's into F-150s and skis!

BAM298

Thanks for all the input guys. I've not made up my mind yet but considering it so figured I'd post.

The main difference in why I think it'd work ok on the F-150 is due to where the hitch receiver is compared to many other vehicles. For some reason the F-150 front hitch is BELOW the bumper completely, rather than exiting in the middle of the front bumper like many other trucks.

I only have a 5.5' bed...and when we go on vacation to spend 10 days at the lake I've got the boat packed with alcohol and the bed packed with luggage/stuff.

On our prior boat I had a custom rack made to mount the jetski in place of the swim platform, but this boat I'd like to do it a bit different if possible.

Here's a picture of a front hitch on an F-150, and my rack that I carry the jetski on has a straight tube into the receiver so it'll be mounted inline with the square receiver hitch.



Hey fellow C'bus dude....Go Bucks!