Desparately need help with trailer setup

Matt what are those little pieces of rope connected to underthere?

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07 H16
Sail No. 110387

They don't connect to anything.

They go around the sidebar and over the casting.

I'll see if I can find a better picture.

I'm a little late on this, but if you really want to be stupid just have a custom trailer built. I've got close to $3k into this I bet, I don't know for sure because knowing what something cost's sometimes just isn't worth it. I'm happy with it, which is good enough.


The frame is all 3"x3" square aluminum tubing. The tounge is 1/4" wall, the rest is 1/8" wall. Sits on a 1750# torsion axle.


All of the wiring is internal. All of the wire is also double insulated to protect it from chaffing inside of the frame. Thirteen L.E.D. lights make sure its seen at night. And honestly, it's bright enough I think you could see it from space.


The sail tube is 12" sch40 PVC pipe. I wasn't willing to spend the huge bucks on caps, so I used plexi-glass screwed onto the front, and cut a slot so it fits into the back. You can see into it which is really nice, there is nothing worse than fishing around in a black hole for your missing glove.


All of the decking is composite. Won't rot, its stable in the sun, and it never has to be refinished. It sits on a 1.5" piece of angle aluminum welded to the inside of all of the frame rails, so it can sit flush with the frame. The decking also weighs more than the boat and the rest of the trailer. It is super nice to stand on when rigging, to throw a chair on, or your wet gear at the end of the day. I think I used 270 round head stainless machine screws. Thank God for air tools. Like Matt mentioned, all the straps pull away from the hulls, and each other. Which keeps your hulls from getting scratched up, and with a bit of angle on the strap helps keep it in place better than straight down.


This is the single smartest thing I did. I put a 7 pin RV style connector on the trailer. Which is what my pickup uses. Should the wiring ever get damaged, the only part that can get damaged is easy to replace. For my other pickup, where it uses the flat four style I just use an adapter, that I carry anyway to plug it in.



This is a drawing of the just the frame that I drew up for the fabricators. I handed him a cut list of all the parts. Some of the dimensions were figured on material usuage rather than actual requirements. Based on 20' material I got the waste down to 5%. And I let him know that too. I lay out and design alot of woodworking stuff based on material for work.


This is how it was wired. I used way more wire than I should have, but this was the easiest route for snaking it through the frame that I could come up with.


Originally I had a comp-tip cut off for the mast crutch. Looked really cool, and aerodynamic. Turned out to be a mistake on my part, I just had the fabricator weld it on. It broke at the weld. Plan B is in the works. The sail track works well for attaching things like a block so you can rig the mast on your own. I hadn't found a trailer I was happy with so I had one built. I spent too much money on it, but like I said I'm happy with it.

"And Now for Something Completely Different" (1976 German Trailer)
Heinemann BA55 ~900lbs, made for few types of cats.



It has four adjustable arms, square pipe slides into bigger square pipe trailers frame and holds by one screw.
Big sails box may storage everything but in that particular type has no breaks so be careful with overload.



It can be use with small boots, normal like HC16 or bigger transported in parts, for that reason has only tail lights on two 5ft arms. That's very smart because you can customize this trailer for any cat and when I keep it in garage it's very tight (but 16,5ft long).
Because of this all arms there is no lights on sides or front (except small reflex on front)



Other tips:
I can remove whole lights panel and drive in to water (whole trailer will float if sails box is not to heavy)
Remember to load sails box before HC, after that there is small gap to lift hath

Regards Marcin!

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Hobie Cat 16 86'

Very nice setup! Where did you obtain that mast caddie?

I made it. Just a big ass block of cedar and cut it to fit the rear crossbar, and the mast. Owning a cabinet shop helps. It ended up red mostly because it was the only can of spray paint hanging around the shop.

That's a big hole in a structural member that close to the hitch. Even for a 0.250 wall thickness. Pro-E says go real easy on the turns cause that's definitely a high load area.

Brian C

Copy on "big ass" block of cedar! I have all the woodworking tools so that isn't a problem. I think I'll give it a shot. Thanks

Karl...

Nice job...that is one serious road warrior trailer. Did you design it to carry multiple boats too?

fler...

How much tongue weight do you have? That is a lot of boat/trailer in front of the axle.

Yes, I know it looks dangerous for cars hook, I have never measure it but I can easy lift it with one hand. That's because I always load heaviest things on back of the sail box. My cars hook limit is 50kg ~110lbs.

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Hobie Cat 16 86'

I have to say, Karl has built a masterpiece here. Totally impressive!

ag

That's why it sits back as far as it does. I think the hole was 1.75" in diameter.



Nope. Thought about it, decided not to. I'd need a heavier axle to pull that off. I'm close to max with either the jetski, or the motorcycle on the front of the trailer.



Thanks man!

My M.E. buddy says you would have been better off putting it in facing up or down (we were bored and postulating another design I'm working on when we saw your post). Essentially facing sideways anywhere between the hitch and the front cross bar makes for some ugly math on turns. The math did get better the further back you went. And that's why trailer people use pigtails fed from small holes in the frame.

But I fed him the estimated dimensions, and I think I used something closer to 1.9" based on the 7 pin hanging on the back of my truck.

And it's not like your boat actually weighs anything compared to the pig I'm towing.

I'm almost maxing out the axle with the jetski, or my motard on there. The trailer+boat+gear weighs 1400#'s. The decking is what killed me.


The other option would be to plate it around the hole. Put a 3" by 6" plate on. Stitch weld till complete, and if you really would be worried drill a bunch of holes in the plate and weld those in too.

If it breaks it breaks. I crawl under it semi frequently and look for cracks in welds, (which I should do again this week, I just got back from a trip to Lake Superior, and will be going to almost Colorado this weekend). I'm waiting for one to pop up. Originally I was going to have every joint plated on the bottom side, curiosity got the best of me and I want to see where it fails. The most likely joint is where the front beams meet the tongue, which is cover by the box unfortunately.

In the unlikely event that this trailer will get sold when the boat does the next one will be out of stainless.

I tried to get Featherlite Trailers to design/build this trailer but apparantly there wasn't enough money to be made with it. Their main factory is 70 miles from my home.

Matt,

What is your eye splice line connected to? The sidebar or something else? I can't see from the picture.

Thanks.

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Michael
'86 H16 #91487