2022 Forest River Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels2881S

The Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels 2881S leaves Forest River's factory at 8,758 lbs dry with 2,550 lbs of cargo capacity. Forest River publishes no GVWR for this line, so the loaded rating is not quoted on this page and is not computed from the other two figures. What the cargo number covers is defined by the factory: fresh water, gear, food, batteries and every dealer-installed accessory come out of it. Fresh water is 8.3 lb per gallon, so filling the 54-gallon fresh tank spends 448 lbs of the 2,550 lbs before anything else goes in.

Dry pin weight is 1,308 lbs, which is 15% of the dry weight. That figure lands on the truck's rear axle and comes straight off its payload rating - not its towing rating, which is the number most often quoted and the wrong one for this decision. Pin weight rises as the trailer is loaded, and a fifth wheel loaded toward its cargo capacity will put substantially more than 1,308 lbs over the bed. Read the payload figure on your own door sticker rather than a brochure maximum for the model.

Tank capacities are 54 gallons fresh, 80 grey and 40 black, 120 gallons of waste capacity against 54 gallons of supply. The ratio is what governs how long the trailer can sit off hookups: waste capacity exceeds fresh, so the fresh tank is the binding constraint and refilling extends the stay. Forest River publishes these three figures per floorplan, and they are the factory's numbers rather than a segment average.

Against the rest of the Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels roster this is the 4th of 11 floorplans by dry weight, in a line that runs from 7,764 lbs to 10,379 lbs. It sits in the middle of the line by weight. Comparing floorplans inside one line is more reliable than comparing across brands, because every figure here comes from the same factory channel on the same day.

A useful way to read these figures is to stop planning against the dry weight. Nobody tows a trailer at 8,758 lbs: that is the weight before water, batteries, propane, bedding, food, tools and anything the dealer bolted on. Load half the published cargo capacity and this plan is already near 10,033 lbs on the road. Because Forest River publishes no loaded rating for this line, the ceiling has to come from the trailer's own weight label rather than from this page, and the comparison you make against the tow vehicle should use the loaded figure.

Every number above was read from one factory document: Forest River's own 2022 brochure for this line, and each figure was read back against that document's text before it was published. This is a single-channel record rather than the two-rendering cross-check this site runs on factory web captures, and it is described that way rather than dressed up as more. The brochure publishes no GVWR for this line, so the loaded rating is shown as not published and is never computed from dry weight plus cargo capacity. Where a figure is missing from this page it is because the brochure does not publish it, not because it was hard to find - and the row says so rather than being quietly dropped.

Forest River publishes no floorplan description for this plan in the channel this page is built from - only the numeric specification block. Rather than describe a layout from the floorplan code, which would be a guess dressed as a fact, this page carries what the factory publishes and says where it stops. 2881S is a Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels designation and this site does not decode it into a layout claim.

Dry weight runs 7,764 to 10,379 lb across the eleven plans and dry pin weight runs 1,215 to 1,761 lb. The pin figure is the one that decides whether a given truck can take the trailer, because a fifth-wheel pin load lands on the truck's payload rating rather than its towing rating - and a 1,761 lb pin will use most of the payload of a half-ton before passengers and gear are counted. Cargo capacity runs 1,584 to 2,550 lb and moves against dry weight rather than with it. Every plan carries 54 gallons of fresh water; grey is 80 or 90 gallons and black 40, 50 or 90, so the waste tanks are the one specification in this line that genuinely varies by floorplan. Travel length runs 28 ft 11 in to 37 ft.

This floorplan carries its water comfortably. A full 54-gallon fresh tank is roughly 18% of the 2,550-pound cargo capacity, leaving the 2881S with a usable gear budget even when you tow full.

The published dry pin weight of 1,308 pounds is 15% of this floorplan’s 8,758-pound dry weight. Fifth-wheel pin weight rides in the bed of the truck, so it comes off payload rather than off tow rating — and it rises with the trailer as you load it, not in proportion to what you put over the axles.

Tank balance is generous here: 54 gallons of fresh against 80 grey and 40 black, so waste capacity keeps pace with supply and the fresh tank is the constraint that ends a dry stay.

Ranked by dry weight, the 2881S sits 5 of 14 in the Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels line: 8,758 pounds against a line that runs from 7,764 to 10,379 pounds. That position is the useful thing to know, because the plans immediately either side of it are the real alternatives.

Either side of it in the same line: Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels 2621WS is 469 pounds lighter at 8,289 lb dry; and Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels 2891BH is 512 pounds heavier at 9,270 lb dry.

Against the 2881S: the Roamer Light Duty 304BHS is 32 lb heavier; the Eagle 28.5RSTS is 62 lb heavier; the Blackthorn 279BH is 179 lb lighter. Those are differences in the published numbers only — what they cost, how they are built and how they live are separate questions each of those pages answers on its own terms.

Those are the nearest fifth wheels from other lines by weight — one per line, picked by proximity on that figure and nothing else. They are listed so the same tow vehicle can be checked against real alternatives, not because they are equivalent inside; layout, build and price diverge sharply across that group.

For scale, the Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels floorplans profiled here run 7,764 to 10,379 pounds dry and 29 to 37 feet of exterior length across 14 plans. Where a floorplan falls in that spread usually says more about which vehicle can tow it, and which site it fits, than the layout name does.

Every profiled floorplan in this line, with the full weight table, is on the Rockwood Ultra Lite Fifth Wheels line hub.

This catalog tracks 18 specification fields per floorplan. Named sources publish 9 of them for the 2881S. The rest are not shown, because the alternative is reading a figure across from a sibling floorplan or from what the segment usually does — and a number nobody published is worth less than an admitted gap.

Not published for this floorplan: GVWR, interior height, sleeps, slide count, axle count, tire specification, awning, refrigerator, air conditioning. If you find one of these in a manufacturer document for this plan, it belongs on this page.

The completeness figure at the foot of this page (75%) measures the same thing on the full field set: it is a measurement of how much this floorplan’s manufacturer publishes, not of how much research went into the page.

How every figure here was sourced and checked is set out on the methodology page.