Boat off trailer

[docdrs]

I have a friend who wants to take his 23 ft crownline bowrider off his trailer to work on the bottom. How do you guys get the trailer out from under the boat? I told him the way I would do it but maybe there is a better safer quicker way

[pap]

I took mine to the lake and docked it :)

[jasun]

in this case, I am not sure "Quick" and "Safe" go together...

I have always seen it done by jacking and moving jacking and moving... nothing quick about it.

[sybrmike]

That's gotta be alot of weight - don't think I'd recommend my suspended from the garage rafters trick...

[wotan2525]

Jack, block, move, block, jack, move, etc....

Or take it to the local marina and have them lift it off and dry dock it for a few days/weeks. Not that expensive, really.

[OUI]

The first thing you do is lower the front of the trail as much as you can. This will raise the back of the boat. Then block the rear of the boat on both sides of the transom. Then raise the front of the trailer as high as you can. This will lift the rear of the boat off the trailer. Then, using a jack, raise the front of the boat off the trailer. The boat will be completely off the trailer at this point. Now start pulling the trailer out from under the boat. When you get to the axles, place another set of blocks behind the axles. Lower the boat onto the blocks behind the axles and you'll be able to pull the trailer out from under the boat and you're good to go.

[jasun]

Not sure this method will work with an inboard, but your welcome to try and let us know!! :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2PwouEIu6Y

[86 century]

With something as small and light as that old glastron that will work just fine.
the crownline he is talking about is much much heavier so dropping her off like that would be real hard on the hull.

The jack and block method is the only safe way of doing it.
Just to be on the safe side it would be a good idea to pull the drive off on the off hand chance it falls.

[suprasam]

You can always use the "good ol boy" method. Tie a long chain to the Ski pole then wrap the other end around a tree, set your truck in four high.....and haul ass. There is a slight chance, you will scratch your hull so you might want to use some old beer can boxes to soften the landing. NOW I am not saying this is what you should do, but yet an idea to be thought about. Good luck!

[haugy]

A-frame hoist is the easiest or two post auto lift. But seeing as how most don't have access to those. Use OUI's method.

What is he doing to the boat that he needs the trailer gone? I don't know about you guys, but if my boat is not on a trailer, and it's sitting on wood blocks. I'm sure as FAWK not crawling under it and working on it, or buffing it. SQUISH.

[docdrs]

Now that is a cool set up

[jasun]

I think that may be cheating.... lol

Love it!

[wotan2525]

Wow! What is the lift rated for and what is it attached to on the top side??

[haugy]

Showoff. 8)

I hope to be able to do that in my next house. I already told my wife we will have I-beams everywhere.

[matt k]

ngavdba, that is just nuts. Your lift is pretty much exactly the same as the 1960s vintage lift we rebuilt in my dad's boathouse, but you know, his is in a boathouse not the garage! Nice work, very "outside the box"

[sybrmike]

Wretched excess! I call foul, not fair, and cheater. Oh & btw - congrats on the really cool set-up.

Just for reference, here's my ghetto version - 8 pulleys, 6 landscape timbers, 2 come-a-long winches, lag bolts & rope. Yes, it also pulled the hull off the trailer (but without driveline). No, I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart (or 23' Crownlines)

11432 11431 11429

[chris young]

Just thought I'd cross post from "84 Rider questions"

I just went through the headache of doing this, and I can tell you a 3000lb inboard ain't sliding off a trailer by tying it to a tree! I had enough pull on the come along to start cracking the glass on the transom, not good! We ended up lifting the whole boat on 3 jacks (2 rolling floor jacks 1 bottle jack on greased plywood. We raised it off the trailer and pulled it on the jacks over the new cradle. It took 4 hours to do this. If I had to do it again it would take less time.

Speaking of which, anybody have a reasonable idea on how hard you can pull on the ski pole? Had I known I may have added a rope to it to take some of the strain off the transom. Also perhaps a rope through the bow eye wrapped around the hull to the stern. With all that, perhaps it would have gone, but maybe not.

[Jetlink]

We measured the length between the two lifting ring points on my friends boat and are in the process of fabbing up a beefy I-Beam to use two of those Volvos that we use to pull engines and other stuff and lift the boat without placing any lateral loads on the lifting rings, only vertical loads. Hopefully I am around when he actually lifts it off the trailer so I can snap some pics to throw up here.:p

Oh and Haugy, we use these machines for tire changes as well, lift the whole thing in the air and spin it around as needed.

[SquamInboards]

If that garage is cheating then my method is downright magic:

1. lift boat off trailer with marine forklift at work (huge benefit of working at a marina, access to a 14,000lb forklift with 15' forks)

But seriously, the way we usually load & unload boats from trailers is the method described by OUI - lower trailer tongue, block transom (usually 2 boat stands), lift trailer tongue until stern is supported by transom stands (or blocks), lift bow of boat off trailer. We use our forklift to lift the bow off the trailer, but it's just a rope through the bow eye (or lift eye). Just make sure to lift straight up on the bow so the boat doesn't swing forward or backward on the transom blocks. Even better if you're doing this more than once, get some boat stands for the transom, they're much more solid than blocks and adjustable, and fit into a tighter space around the trailer.

@Chris Young - that method might work with an empty boat, and/or with wet bunks. But a) it's dangerous, and b) how do you get it back on?

If you don't have a way to lift any part of the boat except floor jacks, you can still use the the lower-the-tongue-method to get the stern supported by each side of the transom. Then you can lift just the keel with one floor jack, move the trailer forward until it hits the jack, block the keel, drop, move the jack and re-lift. You only have to do that 3 or 4 times before the trailer is clear. Kind of a PITA but should only take an hour or so, if you have a good collection of blocks ready. A boat is perfectly happy being supported by the corners of the transom and one forward point on the keel.

[crystal waters]

I will ride along with Haugy on this one! I would be extremely reluctant to crawl under a hull that is supported by only a few blocks etc. It if were my boat I would pay the bucks to have it professionally taken off with a proper boat lift. A 23 ft crownline is not a lightweight vessel. I prefer to stick around for a few more years!

[SquamInboards]

Don't get me wrong, if you're crawling around under the boat, you should have at least 4 stands - 2 at transom and 2 farther forward, where the hull curves up so that it supports the boat front-to-back, and at least one keel block; and it should be on solid, level ground. This is how we support boats all the time at the marina and never, ever have we seen a boat move even a fraction of an inch supported this way. Just getting a trailer out from under a boat, and working under it, are a little different. Also we're using steel stands on the transom and sides, blocks are only used on the keel.

[chris young]

@ Squaminboards. We didn't use the support and pull away method as you described because the final resting place needed to be the cradle for the railway and I wasn't getting the trailer with the boat. (see the photo I posted in the '84 rider questions thread) Now that it's on the cradle it's never coming off onto a trailer again. If I ever want it on a trailer, I'll launch it from the railway and pull it out on a trailer from a boat ramp. In hindsight, I should have used your method and just pulled the cradle under it once it was supported. I just figured we'd pull it straight off the trailer onto the cradle, the bunks were wet on both the trailer and the cradle so I figured a come-along would be plenty to just pull her off the trailer. I was wrong. And rather than re-jig and try again, we just kept at it. The method I used wasn't really dangerous though, the trailer was just a bit higher than the cradle, so the boat was never more than an inch or two above either bunk. we did end up dropping the boat(in slow motion) a few times in the process, but it just landed back on the trailer or the cradle, so it was no big deal.