You do not want to be at 300 lbs tongue weight on even a 3071 lb trailer, and its worst if it weighs more. Anything near or under 10% tongue weight is susceptible to sway. It it was me I'd rather be at 400 lbs and overweight on the tongue than risk creating a sway situation. 

The highest tow rating I see for the Escape is 3500 lbs. That is just plain too low for that trailer. Tow ratings assume there are no passengers or cargo in the tow vehicle, which is of course not the case. Instead of trying to get the tongue weight down on your trailer and risking sway, get a tow vehicle with adequate capacity to tow the trailer and a reasonable amount of gear both in the trailer and TV. You do not have that with the rig you have right now. 

Originally posted by offgrid The dry weight is meaningless. If you haven't weighed it loaded (batteries, water, options, gear, food, tools, clothing, etc etc) then do that before you do anything else. I think you will be surprised, I was.

I respect your ObieWan position here, but the OP already said he would not be packing water, would be loading light.  Has towed the trailer some distance and is content with the performance.

Not being a big Star Wars fan, I have no idea what an "Obi-Wan position" might be, so I will take at face value that it is not meant as an insult of some kind. 

This is not a performance issue, its a safety issue. When you start considering moving weight to the rear of a trailer to get the tongue weight down and that results in a tongue weight at or below 10%, then warning bells should be starting to ring. 

My suggestion was that pedwards weigh the trailer fully loaded with whatever he plans to actually carry, and to also consider the weight that will be in the tow vehicle. If he is satisfied that that is within the specs of his TV and he's comfortable with that then that's fine. 

Obi-Wan was the mentor to Luke Skywalker, teaching him the ways of the Force. It was a compliment.

Okay. the TV is a factor now. What is it if the concern is a class 2 hitch? What is the tow capacity? A class 2 hitch is a 1-1/4" hitch rated up to 3,500 lbs. Now if it is a 2" hitch, then it might be a class 3 hitch.

https://www.curtmfg.com/types-trailer-hitches - https://www.curtmfg.com/types-trailer-hitches

I would be leery of hitching up an RPod if it really is a Class 2 hitch.

Okay. I towed our 179 with a 2016 Ford Escape SE until we hit ice with a crosswind. Now I tow with a 2010 Nissan Frontier LE 4x4. I did use an Equal-i-zer hitch with it. While it can be done, the vehicle is marginal for the task. Don't exceed 60 mph if you don't want to stop every 100 miles for premium gasoline. If you have a stiff headwind, it is like towing faster, and your mileage will drop. I used a Purpleline AeroPlus wind deflector with the Escape. It worked well, and it did help with the mileage. It doesn't help with the Frontier though as it sits too far ahead of the trailer to do any good. You can see it if you look at my early mods pictures.

Since I have no idea where you live, I don't know if you would be close enough that it would be practical for you to get the AeroPlus that I have. I was going to take it to the FROG rally this past summer, but that got cancelled. Ultimately, you do need a tow vehicle with both a higher tow rating and a proper Class 3 hitch and a larger gas tank. Did your Escape come with the factory tow package? The 3,500 lb rating is for that. If it is an aftermarket hitch, then it does not have the 3,500 lb rating. It would also lack the transmission cooler which is very important, especially if you have to climb some long mountain slopes.

Okay. You must have been on flat land and had a tailwind. The best I ever got was about 16 mpg. With a headwind, it was more like 12-13 mpg. As for anti-sway, are you talking vehicle stability control or an actual brake controller for the trailer brakes? Unless Ford has changed things dramatically, the Escape did not come with a brake controller. I had to run the wiring myself for the one I installed. It wasn't fun. If you don't have a brake controller, you need one before you tow again to be legal. As for anti-sway, the Escape I had did have stability control, but not trailer anti-sway. If it has it, it still only controls the vehicle's brakes, not the trailer brakes. The last thing you need is to be passed by the back end of your trailer while you are trying to slow down. I've been there and it isn't pleasant. (see http://www.rpod-owners.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=9133&PID=86002&title=i-wrecked-our-escapod#86002 ).

I was always impressed with the power of the 2L Ecoboost engine. I am sure the newer ones have more improvements. That probably explains the 16 mpg. It wasn't until I installed the Purpleline AeroPlus on ours before I saw 16 mpg while towing, and that was only if we did not have a headwind.

I think the Sway Control is varies to power to each wheel to control sway with brakes.

I had the brake controller professionally installed as running the wires on the car would be a total pain without a lift.

I was in the foothills of Penn and VA as I didn't want to take I95 around DC so it was hilly but no wind. The Aeroplus looks interesting.  I don't have racks on my Escape so I guess I'd have to add them as well.

There are certainly conditions that would challenge any rig, but the more marginal the setup the more likely that is to occur. In many cases we can avoid those situations by choosing to wait until conditions improve, but often surprises happen. 

The other consideration with a marginal rig is lack of flexibility in the form or reserve capacity if the mission changes and say one wants to do a little boon docking or carry a couple extra passengers. 

I too have towed for many years and originally thought that I might tow an rPod with a 3500 lb rated vehicle. I would have been overweight. Being a Toyota guy, I was looking at a Rav4 and got the Highlander instead.  Cost is certainly an major consideration for me and most of us on this forum. If it wasn't we would probably be driving around in much more elaborate dedicated RV's. I couldn't handle a $10K cost difference either, so I buy used vehicles so the cost difference is not much. The Highlander gets a couple less highway mpg than the Rav with the same drive train not towing, there's wouldn't be any measurable difference towing because towing fuel consumption is dominated by the trailer air friction.

For sure a wdh will help improve rig stability, including sway stability. When you hang a trailer on the back of a TV it unloads the front axle. That is especially true for a compact vehicle with a short wheelbase.  Resistance to sliding is proportional to weight and the front axle is your steering control and has the best brakes on the rig, so taking load off it reduces its ability to control the rig. The wdh puts the weight back where its supposed to be. The problem with a wdh is that that load redistribution is not constant, it depends on the road being flat. If you say drive over a high spot the wdh loses tension and load shifts back to the rear TV axle from the front. That's why wdh's generally don't increase tow capacity. But they do help ride, handling, and braking.  

An alternative to a WDH with sway control is electronic sway control such as that from Tuson, Hayes, or Lippert. I have the Hayes Sway-Master which I added after our accident. I never wanted to be in the situation where applying the trailer brakes (which the Escape won't do since the factory sway control only controls the vehicle wheels) would have helped bring the trailer back in line. In the midst of an incident, there is not always time to think about reaching for the manual control. The Hayes Sway-Master applies the trailer brakes if it detects a sway situation.

I think it can probably do what it needs to with just an accelerometer. Its mounted on the front crossmember so in a sway event it measures lateral acceleration of that point relative to the axle. Displacement in mathematical terms is just the second integral of acceleration, so from the acceleration it can know how far the sensor has been displaced side to side. If it knew how far the unit was from the axle it would be able to easily calculate the yaw angle, but I don't see where it is ever actually programmed for that distance so it probably doesn't know the actual angle,. But it probably doesn't need to, it can learn what is normal yaw while turning and distinguish oscillations in yaw due to sway from that.

 Interesting device, but boy is it pricey. 

Originally posted by pedwards2932 That sway control looks great.......I'd have to move the terminal board to make room for it.  The Hayes looks to be about $370 from the manufactorer. It uses GPS and gyro.  Lippert about same price uses accelerometer and gyro.  Tuscon is $550 somehow monitors yaw?  I would worry a little about using GPS if you lost signal?  It will definitely be my next purchase.  Thanks.

The GPS is for speed detection. The gyro is for the sway control. The Hayes needs to know how fast you are going so it does not apply the brakes in a situation where it would be counterproductive, such as low speed turns. It fully activates at 45 mph. I'm not sure how the other two handle it. I don't think a simple accelerometer would detect vehicle speed. It would detect rate of yaw, but the gyro would likely also be able to handle that.

Pitch: front to back tilting movement.

Yaw: side to side movement.

Roll: Just like it sounds rotational movement in line with the trailer.

Technically a moving body can have 6 degrees of freedom (pitch, roll, yaw, surge, heave, and sway). StephenH already described pitch, roll, and yaw.  Surge, heave, and sway are accelerations fore/aft, up/down, and side to side.