I'd love to see a photo of Jill's stamped aluminum cradles.

Tom,

Can you post photos? I am curious what beach cat you have-this sounds like a reasonable solution for a Hobie 16 and maybe even a Hobie 18. A modern F16 and F18 have wide hulls; wide enough I'm not sure PVC is available in near the desired width

You most also excuse the below tirade. I like the creative use of someone elses trash to save $200+ on hull cradle. But I also don't like killing people.

From this website, http://completewastemgmt.com/education/backyard-burning/: "it only takes 5 ounces of burning PVC to give off enough hydrogen chloride gas to kill the occupants in an average size bedroom in ten minutes."

Using a kitchen oven to melt PVC is pretty risky business. Not something I could endorse to others. Would I do it myself? Perhaps, but I have a hot box with digital thermostat for this kind of situation. If you accidentally melt PVC in your oven that oven very well could be toast; cleaning it up would be a total mess and the toxins left behind are pretty nasty. New ovens are $$$.

You can replace the carpet with plastic on the hulls and layup some fiberglass cradles in a similar time frame. Materials costs is about $50.