New Andersen WD hitch

comments embedded below in blue

Lady Fitzgerald wrote:
A couple of thoughts on the latch issue.

1. Has anyone factored in the weight of the tongue pressing down on the ball, countering the force trying to pull the latch into the ball?

the weight of the tongue only pushes 'down' on the ball and into
the tapered friction material

2. Since the ball does not rotate in the coupler (or very minimally at worst, not enough to create a wear issue), wear on the latch won't be an issue. Assuming pressure from the tongue weight does not pull the ball away from the latch (I'm thinking it will), the only time the full pressure from the hitch will be against the latch would be when it is static. As the trailer moves forward, any pressure on the latch (assuming there is any) should be reduced or removed from the latch.

go back to the first or second page to see the rudimentary
force vector sketch made up.

I'll repost it below

3. (OK, I lied about only a couple of thoughts.) In any kind of hitch, the latch would have to take the entire force from the tow vehicle when backing unless the tongue weight is countering some or all of that force by forcing the dome of the coupler onto the upper curvature of the ball (as, again, I feel it does). Since hitches don't normally break when backing, I feel the concerns for the hitch latch when using the Anderson WDH are exaggerated.

How many miles does most hitch latches see during it's life time
vs the tens to thousands of miles going forward?

Then consider how much wear most latches display with maybe ~20 miles
of backing up in their whole life time

Also consider the whopdeedo's (up and down cresting a bump/hill and
bottoming in a gully, etc. That will have the ball go 'up' and 'down'
against the latch. Plus there will be a bit of left and right turning
of the ball and is in how much tolerance there is in the pin holding
the plate to the bottom of the ball shank

I don't have a trailer handy to do this right now but has anyone tried to back a trailer without the latch being engaged? That would give an idea of how much effect tongue weight would have on countering the sideways force being exerted.

This is how many unhook...unlatch and back up to move the
ball out of the coupler glob's front area, where the ball is captured
securely

This is John's picture of a coupler latch that has seen many miles
and assume just backing up of, say 5 miles or so. That latch pawl
looks worn from just a few miles and think how it would look with
tens to thousands of miles