Hi sean.
First of all welcome to the caravanning world and well done for taking the first important step of joining our forum. Here you will find a wealth of knowledge from us lot who at one time or other (33 years ago in my case) were newbies at towing.
You are already thinking sensibly with your regard to weight and loading of your caravan. Practical caravan are currently running pages in the july mag on loading and snaking which is very usefull. They have fell foul of one thing though by quoting a mis guided pre-conception that if your caravan total weight comes to 85% or less than the weight of your tow car, you are going to have a safer tow.
Weight distribution is by far the most important thing to consider which is covered very well by the same issue of the magazine.
By keeping the heavy items like boxes of grocery, awnings, etc on the floor and over the axle of the van, you will encourage a better tow. I use bathroom scales with a 20mm piece of ply on top and then zero'd to check the hitch weight. I wind down the front legs on the van, wind up the jocky wheel and slip the scales under. Then put the side legs away. you will be looking to get a weight reading of 75Kgs give or take a couple of Kgs, which seems to give a good quality tow. If by any chance your car has a lower weight specified by the tow bar manufacturer as the tow bar weight, then you will have to adhere to that.
As for snaking, should you have the caravan sway behind your car, simply take a firm grip of the steering wheel and take your foot off the throttle (accelerator pedal). If it happens going down hill which often seems to be the case, very gradually apply the foot brake. Do not stamp on the brakes as this will exajerate the sway and inevitably end in an accident. Also note the speed at which this occured and keep below that. I had a 13ft swift van once that swayed above 58Mph no matter how carefull I was with the loading, so all i did was to drive at 56Mph (90Kph) to keep out of snaking. After all we were on holiday and taking it easy.
As for reversing, there are plenty of coarses run by the two big clubs which are very good. However if reversing is your only worry, I would take the car and van to a local car park on a sunday afternoon when it's quiet. Then with the car steering wheel at the natural straight ahead position, wrap a couple of turns of insulation tape round the rim at the 6 o'clock position. nnow gently going backwards, move the tape to the right and your van goes to the right and like wise going back to the left corrects the turn by moving the van to the left. Now all you need is a few hours of practice doing wide turns backwards at first aiming to get the van parked in a particular parking bay. It is much easier to do this reversing to the right as you have a much clearer view of whats going on.
So off you go Sean and pratice, practice, practice.
By the way if you have a mover fitted to the van, there is no shame in using that to put the van on the pitch as a lot of sites these days, don't have much room in their roadways to swing a car of 16ft and a van of 22ft hitch to rear of van.
Again don't be afraid to ask fellow caravanners to lend a hand. I've backed other peoples vans onto pitches in the past. In fact I ask them if they would prefer me to stand by the car and talk them through it as they go. Which they often take up as that gives them a free lesson.
Good luck and if there is anything I can do to help feel free to ask.
Regards.
Steve L.
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