• Untitled Document

    Join us on March 29rd, 7pm EST

    for the CBEC Virtual Meeting

    All EYO members and followers are welcome to join the fun and get to know the guest speaker!

    See the link below for login credentials and join us!

    March Meeting Info

    (dismiss this notice by hitting 'X', upper right)

Cradle

dhill

Member III
Hi everyone!

When purchasing a boat with a cradle a few hundred miles from where I want to eventually harbor her, does it make sense to keep the cradle. I was planning to sail the boat to its new home. Alternatively, I could truck it on the trailer or make arrangements to transport the cradle empty.

Thanks!
Dave
 

markvone

Sustaining Member
It depends. Are you going to use it? Can you sell it? Can you move it yourself? Can you store it for free? Will it save you a rental charge for stands? Will you be charged a cradle storage fee? Can you use your own stands in the yard of your choice?

I've had one boat with a cradle (23) and three without (26, 33 and 36). The 23, 26, 33 were in New England so I hauled them yearly. The 23 cradle fit in the back of an 8 foot pickup bed so I could move it and I had a yard to work on it. There was no cradle storage fee in summer at my boatyard back then.

I bought the 33 from 50 miles away and traded the 26 so having no cradle was nice. I needed stands for both but don't remember if I paid an extra fee during storage, probably.

I had the 36 shipped and the trailer didn't/couldn't use a cradle. I would have had to decide what to do with a cradle. I would have tried to sell it and then abandoned the cradle if there was one. I haul every three years and pay for stand rental.

For a larger boat with a larger cradle, I would prefer owning my own stands to owning a cradle because you can store and move them easier. Also re-sale is easier. However, I suspect many yards these days would fear the liability of customer owner stands and not allow them. In the north, where you haul every year, having a cradle is common, not so much as you move south. They become less common as the boat size gets bigger.

Mark
 
Top