Need a boat moved in Philadelphia? Philadelphia Towing dispatches around the clock across Philadelphia, PA. Towing a boat is not the same job as towing a sedan — it comes down to weight rating, deck length, and how the vehicle is secured — so we confirm what you are driving before a truck rolls, and quote the price before the hook goes on.
The right equipment for a boat
Sending an under-rated truck is how a tow turns into damage. Our dispatcher matches the load to the equipment — deck, wheel-lift, or heavy wrecker — and the operator secures it to the manufacturer’s tie-down points rather than whatever is reachable.
A boat stranded on its trailer usually isn't a boat problem — it's a trailer problem: a seized bearing, a blown tire, or a snapped leaf spring. Philadelphia Towing hauls the trailer and boat together on a flatbed, keeping the hull on its bunks rather than unloading it roadside, and dispatches 24 hours a day, every day.
Most calls for a stranded boat aren't about the boat at all. The hull is fine; it's the trailer under it that failed — a wheel bearing that seized after sitting all winter, a tire that let go on the highway, or a hitch that gave out before the driver noticed the trailer was fishtailing. Either way, the boat is still strapped down and going nowhere on its own.
The fix isn't to unload the boat roadside and figure out somewhere to set a hull that was never meant to sit without a trailer under it. Philadelphia Towing loads the whole rig, trailer and boat together, onto a flatbed, so the boat rides the way it was already riding before the trailer gave out.
Why not just swap the tire or bearing roadside?
Sometimes that's exactly what happens — a blown trailer tire is a spare-and-go fix if the wheel and hub are still sound. A seized bearing or a cracked axle isn't; running it another mile can shear the axle and drop the trailer, and then the boat's frame is bent along with the trailer's. Once a bearing's gone, loading the whole trailer is the safer call, not pushing it further.
How do you keep the boat from sliding on the tow?
The trailer's own tie-downs — the bow eye strap and the transom straps — do most of that work already; towing doesn't loosen them, it just adds the flatbed's own chains at the trailer frame, not the hull. Deck angle matters more than people expect: loading at too steep a tilt lets a boat sitting loose in its bunks walk forward under braking, so the deck comes up close to level rather than dumping the load on at an angle.
Can you tow a boat that's still on its trailer?
Yes — that's how most of these calls go. The trailer and boat load onto the flatbed together rather than separating the hull from the trailer roadside.
What if the boat came off the trailer?
That's a slower, more careful load — the boat gets supported and strapped directly instead of riding on its own bunks, and it takes longer than a standard trailer-and-boat tow. Call first and describe what's on the ground so the right equipment comes out.
Is this available at night, after a late trip back from the water?
Yes — dispatch runs 24 hours every day of the week from the yard at 6062 Old York Rd, which covers a Sunday-evening trailer failure on the way back from the ramp as much as one on the way out.
Does Philadelphia Towing handle boats regularly, or mostly cars?
The 4.7 rating from 25 Google reviews is mostly car and truck calls, not boat-specific ones. That doesn't change the equipment — a flatbed is a flatbed — but it's fair to ask when you call whether the truck coming has hauled a trailer boat before.