Talk about strange. Paul told me a few weeks ago his plates were gone from his boat trailer. Then told me about how to get replacements. We took my boat last week and when I was hooking it up noticed the plates were gone. Now I have found plates laying in the water at boat ramps and since my plate holder (metal) looked like it had broke from being bent back and forth thought that was probably the culprit. Do not know what happened but you may want to do as I did and put a strap on the plate if it breaks off it will at least stay with the trailer.