Cradle mounts

I am looking for some cradle mounts to go on a standard 2" x 2" square trailer crossbar and wonder if anyone has a lead or two? There's got to be a supplier out there somewhere and I am just haven't found them yet. The rollers in the pic below are similar to the rollers that I have on my FX trailer, except made by another company. (These are called "Hobie style roller assembly" at Trailer Parts Depot.)

The cradles that I have now are for 2" tubing -- like the axles on beach wheels. All the roller assemblies that I have seen, including mine, have 2 1/2" round rollers and will not fit the cradles. I have toyed with replacing the rollers and shafts, going to 2" x 9" rollers and 1/2" shafts. But the whole assembly will need some cutting and grinding down -- which I don't want to do for several reasons.

I could order new custom trailer crossbars and mounts like those from Trailex in the photo below, but that's pricey. Ideal would be a bracket mount for the 2" x 2" square crossbar with the attachments that Trailex offers for the cradle and its strap.

All advice will be greatly and humbly appreciated. I am getting tired of pushing my boat up and down the road on cat trax.

From this thread on trailers, I got this picture, from the Dog:



Trailex's:

There isn't a specific cradle for the FXone, and 2" tubing that I know of.

Just take a piece of aluminum 1/4" thick, 3" wide, and whatever length is needed to span the bottom of the cradle and drill through the cradle, the aluminum plate, and the trailer beams. That's the way my old trailer was setup.

Any metal fabricator should have something laying around that would work for you, and probably wouldn't charge much to cut them to length.

Here's a side pick of my cradles.

My trailer is all 3"x3", but I still used the aluminum plate. you can just see it at the top of the other blocks I used to build them up to clear the fenders.



here's the thread: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10396

Murrays has hull cradles made for 2" square beam trailers. Check "Hull Cradles & Tie-Downs on page 55 http://www.murrays.com/archive/archive.html#Cat_Accessories

You can also check trailer parts superstore. They have cat cradles as shown in the first picture.

CAUTION! These will not fit the profile of your FX! Not even close.

Another way to mount the cradles to the rollers is to use an angle grinder and grind the rubber down to 2" and use the stock hardware. It's pretty simple to do, but I buzzed the tip of my boot one time so be careful. This will allow the cradles to swivel a bit when loading. That way the boat never rests on the hard edges of the cradles.

Happy sailing JJ!

J

P.S. I'd buzz off that side roller. I've seen more boats with a big long pressure ding down the side from those things.

Get double rollers or tripple rollers then the cradle can sit between the rollers. The rollers can them be used to load the boat and when its on just lift the stern and set the cradles in.

_________________
Rich Vilvens
F-18 5150
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http://www.sailblogs.com/member/f-185150sailing/

Actually decided to do Karl's thing on the front cradles. (I picked up a 4 set of cradles from an FX owner who had extra.)

Bolted the front cradles to 8" x 10" x 1/4" metal, as per Karl's suggestion. Then drilled holes in the metal and used galvanized bolts and a frame strap under the 2" x 2" cross beam to secure it on one side. Then a single galvanized bolt through cross beam one the other to stop any side-to-side shift.

On the rear, I kept the rollers because they make the boat so much easier to off-load. Had to get 9" x 2" rollers and replace the shafts. When traveling, the rear cradles rest on the rollers.

I noticed that the cradles would not fit on the rollers without moving the assemblies further out because the vertical rollers on the outside pushed the cradles in toward the inside (the FX is exactly 85" wide, middle to middle) -- and that left the boat dangerously close to falling off the inside of the rollers. So I am putting in a longer shaft and an additional roller on each side. 18" of roller per side on the rear! Overkill maybe, but I figure this is cheap compared to hull damage. I am not spending a whole lot of money -- just gave up and started cutting and grinding the roller assemblies that I have.

If anyone made it through that last paragraph, then I will post some pics when done if I am happy with the whole mess.

One thing that really spooked me were the vertical brackets on the roller assemblies as they were originally designed. They were square and stuck up above the existing 2 1/2" rollers so that if the boat wandered a little to the side while unloading, the metal edges could make a nice long tear in the hull bottom. I assume the rollers were designed for an H16 with the skeg keel which wouldn't come close to the vertical edges, but still... what were the trailer builders thinking? I have since got my grinder out and rounded things off so the vertical ends are lower than any point on the roller.

Of course, all this has been a pain. But it certainly has added a measure of respect for me for the people who design boats and trailers and all the points that have to be taken into account before the product rolls out.

While I am on trailer tweaking, I am considering adding a bracket to the rear of the trailer in which to drop a temporary mast stand. The mast stand would be to do what Karl uses his 6' step ladder to do: Hold the mast up to rig it before stepping it... Anyone done this already? I have seen some monohulls with it.

Meanwhile, we are already at summer weather and the lake winds have dropped dead... blah.

Usually when there is a rear mast stand it is just for holding the mast somewhere other than the rear beam, and not for rigging. With the bulk of the weight past where the mast will rest is will be a real pain getting it into position I'd think. Plus it'd have to be pretty darn high to get the diamond wires to clear the beam.

I'm thinking about putting my boat on the trailer backwards so I can rest the head of the mast on the mast crutch while rigging. I'm thinking the ladder might actually be easier though. I'd have to remove my spin pole for trailering, I would have to come up with some other idea for holding the mast up too because I use a block at the base of the crutch that I run a line from a trap line to the spin cleat to hold the mast up so I can pin the forestay when rigging solo. Also I wouldn't be able to put the rudders on till it was off the trailer. I'm not sure I'll actually gain anything, and really the only reason I don't like using the ladder is that I'm worried some A-hole is going to walk off with my $200 double sided fibreglass ladder. I've thought about making a tri-pod out of some scraps of

Glad you got your cradle issue resolved.

http://jimbo633.simpload.com/cradles.jpg

To finish the original post...

The front cradles are bolted to the plates. The rear cradles are just resting on the rollers.

Though they can't be seen, the rear angled vertical roller is still there. On the outside of the hull.

The horizontal rollers are two 9" rollers on new shaft. I sawed the four roller brackets (like the ones in the first pic of the thread) in half. Then found a shop that would weld a plate on to join the two. Since it was a small amount of galvanized, they said they would weld it -- although he said they did it outdoors only.

The point of the wide rollers was to keep the bows from falling off or missing the rollers and being damaged. One bow can hit the upright on one side and the other bow will still be on a roller.