Towing with Full Water Tank

Another thing to check is the payload of your TV. By taking gear out of your RPod and moving it to your TV, you might find that you exceed your payload when you factor in the weight of all of the passengers, gear, and tongue weight of the trailer. The sticker inside the driver's side door should give you all of your specs (look for curb weight and GVWR)

This is in addition to water tank placement, gear loading, tongue weight etc.  

+1

Having ended up facing the wrong way on I80 with oncoming big rigs, I can fully appreciate the information given here. In my case, it wasn't sway but ice with a crosswind. However, the end result was the same.

1) F250's are great tow vehicles. Awesome. Excellent choice.

2) Lots of folks are trying to tow around too much trailer with too little tow vehicle. Specifically, the 3500 lb tow SUV category is marginal at best even for a lighter rPod.

3) No one wants to cause anyone harm.

4) The density of water is 8.34 lbs per gallon and unless you're one of us engineering/pilot nerds putting together a weight and balance spreadsheet that isn't significantly different from 8 (that's why I put it in parentheses). 

5) You have to be more careful to get everything right when you are towing with a light tow vehicle rather than a heavier one.

6) A heavy tow vehicle can save a sway incident by remaining planted even when the trailer is out of control. 

7) Trailers need to have their weight properly balanced so they don't sway, even if you are running a heavy tow vehicle. 

8) If your tongue weight is too low you can add some weight up front to increase it (as long as you don't exceed the max gross weight of the trailer). 

9) If you can lift your rPod's tongue by hand then the tongue weight is too low.  

Good so far? What don't we agree on? Here's what we might or might not disagree on, it's really only 3 items I think. If I'm wrong or missed something let me know.

1) The minimum tongue weight we should be shooting for is about 10% of trailer weight. Lots of real world info and recommendations on that one, including incidents of sway on rPods. Do you agree or disagree?

2) You can let the tongue weight be lower if the weight is low in the trailer (like in a water tank). I haven't seen anything suggesting that so I disagree.

3) You can check if the tongue weight is OK by trying to lift the trailer and not being able to. You described the opposite test (not OK if you could lift the tongue) which is certainly true, but not particularly useful for someone to decide they're good to go. So, if the implication is that someone can use this as a test to see if they are OK rather than actually getting a tongue weight, I disagree. Most folks will give up at around 100 lbs or less. A loaded 177 is going to be upwards of 3000 lbs. So you want the tongue weight 300 lbs plus. 

As for having different methods for working out solutions to problems, that is for sure true. I'm an engineer. I know, its kinda weird, but we like to do math for fun. Sorry about that, born that way, can't change it. You are of course free to ignore my posts if it bothers you.