new pics from brian

Brian Hope never to have similar photos! Posting these shots is an excellent warning to all of us that we must set up our rigs very carefully. With the water tanks setup like that & no additional weight on the draw bar you were just an accident waiting to happen. When we collected our van, first we had ever towed, we drove very carefully to the Forest Glen Caravan Park & weighed with ball scales - 112kg! Another accident waiting to happen. Fortunately our three batteries are under the bed so that may have helped a bit. We now travel with about 260-280 on the ball but this is after fitting, on the A-frame, a toolbox which carries the boat fuel tank & Honda 10i plus fitting two jerry cans (the German manufactured) which we mostly keep full. Additionally I lined the hold with about 50kg of ply. Paul tells me that BT now fill the front water tanks when vans are collected - this helps but the second tank adds little to the tow ball if the long draw bar is installed. I urge any new BT owner, especially if long draw bar fitted, to invest in a set of ball scales & if the ball weight is below the 160-180kg range fill the front hold with booze. Later when the Hitches are fitted get the ball weight up to around 250kg. The alternative is to buy a digital camera so that they can post another set of warning photos when the inevitable happens! Andy

We now have our drinking water tank at the front, because you always try to keep plenty of drinking water, and we moved the batteries from under the seats above axle, to under the bed at the front at front of van.