double fish trailer

Now that I had 2 Sunfish-style boats, I was presented with the opportunity to occasionally take them both out for sailing.  I suppose that I could have tried to car-top one on our  Chevy Tahoe, and trailer the other… but that didn’t particularly appeal to me.. as the car-topping part was what led me to buy Fish #2 and it’s trailer.  trying to scramble and get ready for a camping trip one weekend, I decided to throw together a frame built out of 2x pine lumber that would allow me to stack the 2 ‘Fish on top of each other, without causing damage to either one’s deck, splashguard, etc.

I made a frame using (2) 2×6’s and (2) long 2×4’s.  the frame is about 4′-3″ wide and 6’-0″ long. the (2) 2×6 boards were roughly shaped, top and bottom, to match the deck curvature for my Sunfish (bottom) and my Super Porpoise (on top).  I also threw a couple diagonal 2×4’s in the front corners, which helps keep the frame from racking when I’m lifting it on and off the lower ‘Fish.  I used a few pieces of pipe insulation over the edge of the 2×6’s to keep from scratching the decks.  the previous owner of my Sunfish had made a nice jig out of wood – shaped like a “Y” sort-of, that slides into the daggerboard trunk, and holds the sails/spars – you can see it sticking out up from the daggerboard trunk on the upper boat. he also had another “Y”-shaped bracket mounted at the front, but to make it work I had to make my own quickly to raise the height of the “Y” to work with the double-stacked Fish. the “Y” I made and the older one are interchangeable, though, so I can switch back to his bracket when I transport just the 1 Fish.

here’s a picture of the final result, from June of 2005: