The tongue weight of a travel trailer is the result of how the trailer is loaded, and a properly loaded trailer will have about 60% of the weight ahead of the axle and 40% of the weight behind the axle. When loaded this way, a typical trailer will have around 15% of its weight on the tongue.
It's not the light tongue weight, per se, that causes sway
. It's the improperly loaded trailer with too much weight in the back that is the problem. A Weight distributing hitch (WDH) does nothing to change how the trailer is loaded. Besides ensuring proper loading of the trailer, tongue weight is also important to determine whether the TV receiver is adequate for the trailer.
Batmovan,
I like your summary except for just a couple of things. A light tongue can cause sway - one could interpret your sentence(above in red) to mean that a light tongue cannot cause sway, only improper loading. Sometimes people do load everything in the front and the tongue is still light. So even with proper loading you can still have a light tongue. Also there is no mention of what percentage is too light.
Second you don't mention that axle location also determines the tongue weight (in addition to loading). Other than that I like it. Tom
