A Boat-Trailer Catwalk

My present boat, an 18′ launch, is the first boat I have owned that lives continually on a trailer and is launched and retrieved for each use. When I first used the trailer, I found it inconvenient to stand on the tongue underwater while releasing the winch strap, and difficult to balance on the trailer frame while climbing aboard the boat. During retrieval, it was even more awkward to step from the boat to the trailer to attach the winch strap.

My solution has been to add a catwalk to one side of the trailer. The attachment is meant not only to keep the boat centered on the trailer but also to make it easy to get in and out of the boat. It has been an unqualified success.

I made the catwalk from an 8"-wide rough-sawn spruce board fully 1″ thick. To stiffen the piece, I fastened a 3½″-wide spruce board, also fully 1" thick, on edge underneath the catwalk and extending for most of its length. (Pine would work as well, but if I had used pine I would have increased the stiffener’s width to 4″.) I took care to make no part of this structure extend outboard of the trailer’s wheels.

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