I know, Mike. It's just that the safety chain placement was left out of this discussion and then I started to think about it when Bill posted about chains. It does sound like he is married to this design; maybe better chain placement, heavy chains **and correspondingly heavy hooks** (I forgot that part) might mitigate things....
That is a story of yours there that made me laugh in an 'oh fine' kind of way. I can just imagine that happening. "Will you stop that already??" Interesting that your trailer tongue had an upward vector like mine did. Thinking about it further, I am now betting that just about any trailer crash will do this as the hitting vehicle will be higher than the trailer frame, pushing down the trailer rear and thus raising the tongue spear. Gotta have a system that can control this.
It is not just what you are towing, it is also covering what another person's mistake can do. Tomes