Boat off trailer

[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.

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)

Top Cap 005 small.jpg Top Cap 004 small.jpg Top Cap 001 small.jpg

[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.

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!