My two Dyer dinghies (a 10-foot “Dink” and a 9-foot “Dhow”) were once transported stacked in my utility trailer with a custom cradle for the Dink and the Dhow upside down and stacked on top of a custom-made frame. Unloading the boats proved to be a semi-daunting physical task, so I decided to build a custom cradle for the Dhow and mount it to a small boat trailer. Henceforth, the Dhow rides on the trailer and the Dink rides in the bed of the truck on the already-built custom cradle for that boat. Building a custom cradle begins with the boat upside down, and protected, in this case with shrink wrap material:

The fiberglass is laid up over the boat and the wooden contraption on top was my way of aligning supports that were glassed to the cradle. These supports were then connected by 2x4s whose sole purpose is to maintain the correct orientation and distance between the two cradle pieces.

After popping the cradle off the boat I was happy to see that the shrink-wrap material provided adequate protection from the glass layup.

I cleaned up the rough edges and then glued outdoor carpet material, as shown here:

Anticipating may iterations of fitting and checking, I installed a few cleats and some lines so that I could easily raise the boat off the trailer.

Eventually I decided to make a “flat bed” trailer with a piece of plywood and then added additional supports glassed directly to the plywood. The almost-finished product looks like this:

I still need to add tie-downs and fix the plywood securely, so it won’t move, but the majority of the work is done, and just in time for good rowing and sailing weather.

Update: Trailer is complete.