Ball hitch on lawn tractor to move a boat

Anyone put a ball hitch on the front of their lawn tractor. I have a tight space to back in to and I’m wondering if my 18 hp will move my 18 ft fish hawk.

I made a hitch for my last lawnmower (a JD 318) that clipped right onto the front snow blower mount. That way you can see what you are doing, and have great maneuverability and can see what you are doing. I since have sold the mower, and I think the mount I made went with it, but with a little time, some scrap steel, and a welder, you can make your own. It worked well with my old 17 Alumacraft, but my 20′ Crestliner was a little much to push.

Use an X485 JD to move my Lund Fisherman 1700 up a grade with no problems. Make sure you tractor can support the trailer tongue weight and you should have not problem on level ground.

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Make sure you tractor can support the trailer tongue weight and you should have not problem on level ground.

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The operational words are in bold. On level ground.

Even a larger lawn tractor doesn’t have any or much weight advantage on a boat. Lawn tractors also don’t have terrific brakes. So if the boat starts rolling, you got a YouTube fail video in the making because if the boat outweighs the tractor, nothing’s going to stop it from going where gravity takes it.

There are any number of videos on YouTube of lawn tractors getting wrecked by trying to pull boats. Quite a few of them seem to be shot south of the Mason Dixon line for some reason.

I use my little John Deere rider to bring my little Lund up from the parking pad in the back yard, but it’s slightly uphill. I never use it going back down, I just push/guide it by hand.

Grouse