O'Day 25 trailer question

[jsachetti]

My O'Day came with a wooden cradle sitting on a flat iron trailer that the previous owner would have the boatyard pickup and drop the boat onto the trailer each year to be stored in his yard. I have been storing the boat in a boatyard on jacks and not using the trailer which has been sitting in my driveway rotting away. I'm thinking about using the trailer again to store the boat but the cradle needs to be rebuilt. i'm wondering if the cradle could be modified in some way to float the boat onto rather than being lifted on by a yard. Or could the flat iron trailer be modified with supports that could either be attached some kind of u-bolts or even jacks welded to the frame.
Has anyone done a project like this?

 

[Joe11688]

My O'Day came with a wooden cradle sitting on a flat iron trailer that the previous owner would have the boatyard pickup and drop the boat onto the trailer each year to be stored in his yard. I have been storing the boat in a boatyard on jacks and not using the trailer which has been sitting in my driveway rotting away. I'm thinking about using the trailer again to store the boat but the cradle needs to be rebuilt. i'm wondering if the cradle could be modified in some way to float the boat onto rather than being lifted on by a yard. Or could the flat iron trailer be modified with supports that could either be attached some kind of u-bolts or even jacks welded to the frame.
Has anyone done a project like this?

There's a guy in Raynham who bought a 25 O'Day real cheap. He joined our club and although he did power boating he was new at sailing. He bought a fairly new Ez-Loader tandem powerboat trailer and had boat stand poppets welded to it with 4x4 supports. As a mechanic, he was clever enough to raise the boat using sailboats stands, wood blocks, and a metal eye beam to support the bow while he rolled the trailer under the hull and set it up. He was able to raise the mast on the boat all by himself.
With that said though, you may be better off buying a tandem trailer that will take a 26' boat with the GVWR to take your boat. Then you could change the trailer's extension brackets that hold the bunks to longer ones to accommodate the keel.
You could use two 2x10 pressure treated planks sandwiched together for the keel to sit on like I did.
Several years ago I bought a new Long mfg Aluminum tandem powerboat trailer off of Walmsley Marine in Warren RI. for my O'Day 222. The trailer has a GVWR of 4600 and will take a 23' boat. I bought the 24" extension brackets for it and set the trailer up with the planks that I bought. I was able to anchor the planks to the trailer's galvanized cross members without drilling holes in the cross members. I used the back straps with the carriage bolts from two galvanized brackets that are commonly used by the power company to mount lightning arrestors and fuse cutouts and countersunk the carriage bolt heads into the plank so the keel wouldn't hit them. The power companies sometimes throw the plates and bolt away and they would probably give them away for the asking. The great thing about these brackets is that you can loosen them and slide the plank to one side of the cross member and this comes in handy for me every year when I take my boat off trailer to put it on boat stands. It worked out great for me.
Because my trailer is longer, I'm able to float the boat on and off with no problem. Long Trailer Mfg. went out of business a couple of years ago, but I just heard last week that they are coming back. I think that Walmsley may have some of their trailers in stock but I'm not sure.
The extension brackets that they made were the best I've ever seen on the market. I was able to adjust my trailer with the boat sitting on it, in no time at all with two of my sailboat stands and a couple of jacks. Check out the pics.
Joe

 

[jsachetti]

Thanks for the reply Joe. I want to use the trailer that I have now and from your info I believe i can. The keel support is not a problem, it's finding and attaching the side supports but i think I can do it. I need to find a place that has the trailer parts.

 

[Joe11688]

Thanks for the reply Joe. I want to use the trailer that I have now and from your info I believe i can. The keel support is not a problem, it's finding and attaching the side supports but i think I can do it. I need to find a place that has the trailer parts.

Try this place first:
http://www.boatma.com/members/membersys/member-list.pl?type=show_account&aid=100512
I think its on Route 12 North in Oxford. I brought my trailer down there a couple of times when I wasn't sure of the part I needed, and the guy would check it out to make sure that I got the right part, like trailer springs.
They used to be the main distributer of Load-Rite roller trailers for the O'Day 192, 222, and the 240 years ago. They have everything including square stock galvanized tube. I'm not sure whether they carry a decent extension bracket for your bunks. Mine are 1-1/2'' square tube with four bolt brackets each.

This place may have the 24" extension brackets for the bunks in stock. If so, I think it would be worth the long ride from Salem to buy them. I recommend them highly.

http://walmsleymarine.com/

Joe

 

[billh]

Hello,

What Joe did with Trinkka is fantastic and looks extremely stable! Very nice setup.

If you look at my Albums you will see what I did for my O'Day 26 for now! I took that wooden cradle and dropped it on a Motor Boat trailer removing the rollers. It sits on the crossmembers and uses four plates ubolted to the frame and lag bolts screwed into the wood to keep the cradle in place.

However I did just purchase two new crossmemebers to support the keel, and bolted them on. Next I am going to figure out how to mount some of those rollers and use them so I can completely remove the wood. I was able to purchase, used, four jack stands so I will figure out how to use the jack stands to adjust the rollers.

I bought four 8 ton bottle Jacks, Tractor Supply had a great sale on them, $20 each, and ever so slowly jacked her up a few inches, cradle and all from the trailer. I did that so I could get under and drill holes and attach the two new crossmemebers under the keel. This is the first step in removing the wooden cradle.

But the big issue I guess is along the lines you have, how to mount the rollers on the crossmemebers. That seems to be my hold up for now. Or, do I simply weld those jack stands on and go with that solution. But looking at Joe's setup I like that alot.

But, she is in the water now, and sailing season is upon us, so maybe in the Fall then

Happy sailing

Bill H.

Thanks for the reply Joe. I want to use the trailer that I have now and from your info I believe i can. The keel support is not a problem, it's finding and attaching the side supports but i think I can do it. I need to find a place that has the trailer parts.

 

[Joe11688]

Bill,
The trailer that came with my O'Day 222 was a Load-Rite Roller trailer that was built specifically for my boat and it worked great for me because I trailered my boat every weekend in the summer when I first got it. If you're interested in adding keel rollers to your trailer, I have some pics of my old trailer set up that you can get some ideas from but bare in mind that roller pins can bend and cause the roller to bind up. The roller trailer was great back then but today I favor a bunk trailer whereas I have a mooring and only trailer twice a year. So here's the pics.