Lifting a sailboat from a trailer question

[EnginesForward]

I just took my V-22 off the trailer which has two axles so I could remove my swing keel. I use 6 x 8's and 4 x 4's two auto jacks and a bottle jack then ran 2x6 x 12's where the bunks would support the hull as if it was on the trailer. If you can support the keel and the hull with dunnage. just take the wheels off the trailer and put furniture dollies under it and drag it out. Good luck, take your time and be safe.

 

[davidmhull]

Thanks. I have a mental update. I was talking to a friend of mine who launches his boat from the ramp I will be using if I go that route. He told me that the ramp is shallow and I would probably need some kind of trailer tongue extension to be able to clear the 24" keel. I would want to do this before I have it hot dipped so it is looking more like pulling the boat using the gantry, modify the trailer and then hot dip. I am thinking about an eight foot extension would do it although that is something of a wild ass guess. Got to be better then nothing. I thought I would get a box beam that would fit up in the tongue pipe with a few holes drilled for cross pins. At the launch I would pull the cross pin and extend the hitch about 8' and then put the cross pin back in. If I am going to cut off the present hitch I think now is the time since I want to be left with only a hollow square beam. The extension would have the hitch on it. I hope this makes sense. The weather has really gone to crap around here so it will probably be next week before I pull her. One thing I have learned from all your input is that there is not any one way to do it. This is a good thing really. If there was only one way and if you don't do it that one way then you are going to crack something then I would be more worried. All of your input has made me aware of things that I would not have thought of however and I really appreciate it.

 

[Chief RA]

Extension will work fine as long as your reciever is heavy duty. I use a 7' extension on my Catalina 250. Chief

 

[Sumner]

..... I am thinking about an eight foot extension would do it although that is something of a wild ass guess. Got to be better then nothing. I thought I would get a box beam that would fit up in the tongue pipe with a few holes drilled for cross pins. At the launch I would pull the cross pin and extend the hitch about 8' and then put the cross pin back in.....

People have done that with success if I'm understanding what you have planned.

I'd put the sliding extension under the present tongue and put the coupler on it. Might have to raise the coupler back up at the head of the extension depending on your present receiver/ball location. I'd make the extension out of rectangular tubing vs. square tubing and put the long side vertical where you need the strength. I'll bet 2 X 4 thick wall would work fine.

I think Frank (caguy on here) did that something like this so he could launch his Catalina 27 at a mast up storage yard, but might be wrong,

Sumner

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[DAVA390]

You should keep the hitch on the current tubing so it is correct for over the road. As Sumner said, add a second tube for extension but let it have it`s own hitch.

 

[Sumner]

You should keep the hitch on the current tubing so it is correct for over the road. As Sumner said, add a second tube for extension but let it have it`s own hitch.

If you step the front of the bottom tube up at the front I don't see why that can't be the coupler location for 'in' or 'out' on the extension. It that is the height you want you would be right back where you were. If you have a coupler on the tongue and the extension how is that going to work. I'd think the lower one wouldn't slide back and be out of the way of the upper one. With only one coupler you wouldn't have to unhitch the trailer and re-hitch it.

In fact I'd put the couple at whatever height is best for the tow vehicle to keep the trailer level or get the hitch ball on a couple of the right height. Many options there.

I use....

... one like above on the suburban since it also gets the ball far enough back that I can open the back of the suburban without hitting the ladder on the front of the trailer.

Lots of options,

Sumner

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[Parsons]

I want to hear about the Wolf Trap lighthouse, if it's legal to tell ...

 

[RTSKI]

Concur that the tilt on my trailer doesn't do much for me, if anything, I also could certainly use an extension, although I'm not sure how that would work, as the tongue has all sorts of stuff welded and bolted to it. I presume one would have to set the jack down and chock the wheels of the trailer while adjusting the extension, or simply unhook, extend or collapse the extension and line up any holes for the pins, then hook back up to the tow vehicle. I suppose a simple intermediate steel extension with a hitch ball on one end and coupler on the other - not at all elegant - would not work very well?

 

[Chief RA]

Put the extension in the reciever! It works, and is much easier to build than a trailer extension! Use your hitch wheel barely touching the ground for vertical stability. You guys are hard to teach! Chief

 

[Joe]

The extension doesn't have to slide in or on anything. It detatches and is stored on the trailer.

http://standingatthehelm.blogspot.com/2011/04/trailer-tongue-extension.html

 

[davidmhull]

I'll get back with you on that one Parsons. Better PM me on that one. Long story with some arrrrr matey thrown in for good measure. I've go so many projects going on with getting this old girl going that I'm losing track. Suddenly my focus is not on getting the boat off the trailer but how best to extend the tongue. I guess it's not uncommon to have a lot of issues that rely on some order of progression. That's life eh? I have been looking at what other people have done on their trailers and although there are a gazzilion different ways of doing this the following two ideas intrigue me. Both do not require any modifications to the present hitch at all and seem like they would work. The idea of connecting a chain or rope to the trailer and then kissing it goodbye as the whole rig roles back down the ramp is not an option in my opinion. In order to get an extension that is truly usable I need to go long. Both of the below options seem good to me. Comments?

 

[Sumner]

The one Joe shows is what I would do except if it doesn't need to be 20 feet long then why store it, use it and you won't have to unhitch the vehicle at all. If you need one so long that it is going to go back and hit something in its path then I can see the need to remove it and store it some place on the trailer.

This one...

... is intriguing but I don't like the fact that it uses the ball. It might work fine but the ball gives it no lateral support (it can pivot on the ball). As I said it might work fine but the back square support is going to have to be made with a sloppy fitting in order to get the ball in the coupler and I'm not crazy about that either. Whatever you decide take pictures and get back with how it worked out. I'm sure others with a similar boat/trailer will be interested along with the rest of us that like this sort of thing .

Completely out of context but I use to have a trading post selling Native American art here in the southwest and this one couple came in every year. They had a custom made camping van that was 4 wheel drive and a custom very high clearance trailer behind it to haul kayaks and other camping gear and they like to go into the back country on some pretty extreme jeeping trails.

The interesting part about the trailer was that the tongue on the trailer was a large diameter round tube. Inside of it was another round tube that could rotate 360 degrees inside the main tube. On the front of the smaller tube was the coupler for the trailer ball. They could get into some extreme places off road with the van and the trailer at extreme angles to each other,

Sumner

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[skipper66]

You can stop worrying about collapsing the sides of an O'Day 22 with the straps. Mine is handled that way frequently.

Use two straps, one just ahead of the keel and another just behind it. Be sure to tie the two straps together along each side of the boat so they can't slip out toward the ends of the boat. While some lifts use two independent straps and others use a spreader ban to keep the straps apart, there shouldn't be a problem with one lift point. Balance of the boat fore and aft will be the thing to watch as you don't want either the bow or the stern to head for the ground.

PS if you have a speedometer propeller under the boat, remove it prior to lifting.

 

[davidmhull]

No skipper there is no speedometer propeller. Sumner, I was thinking of using square tubing in a square socket with a fairly close fit. The ball mounted on the extension would use the original hitch as just a firm forward lift point. I know what you mean about flopping around on the ball but if the socket is tight it would not be able to do that. It would of course have to have some vertical "play" to be able to couple it but side to side and rotation would be controlled. I was going to use either a very short piece of tubing for the socket or fabricate something with two vertical tabs welded to the bottom of the trailer and a through bolt to catch the tail of the extension. The tabs would be close enough together to keep the extension from rotating. If you have ever used a drawbar on a tractor three point hitch you know how forgiving the system is. The drawbar rolls so that the ball is nowhere near vertical and yet it still does not let go or cause any problems. This system would have very little roll in it so I think it will work. I am seriously considering using this method because it is easy and cheap. All I need is two tabs with a through hole for a bolt, a 2" ball , a hitch and a section of tubing. I can get the tubing down the street at a place that builds trailers. The hitch would be the cheapest money can buy from Northern Hydraulics and the tabs are free out of my scrap pile. Oh and a ball is about ten bucks. I like the other idea too but after actually looking at my trailer it is not going to be easy. The picture shown is of a trailer with a pretty short tongue. Mine has a tongue that is already ten feet long and I would probably need twenty feet of tubing to make it work. In other words it's a loooong way back from the hitch to anything I could weld a socket too. I would much rather start at the end of the tongue where it is and add ten feet to that.

 

[skipper66]

My trailer has an extension built in. Pretty easy to use with a little help.from the tongue jack. Trailer also has tilt but never use it.

Our O'Day 22's weigh about 2,750 pounds. Plan your strap capability around that.

I'd like to hear if anyone has built a gin pole attachment onto an O'Day 22 trailer?

 

[J Hunter]

Yeah don't lift that complete boat by yourself off a single point gantry. It will be way really hard to lift it flat because you cant know the exact center of gravity, and if you do get it up, with all that weight bouncing fore and aft of the wheeled base of the gantry it's going to be really hard not to tip it over. You want to get a second gantry or build a stern support out of timbers that you can slide under it from aft when you use the gantry to pick up just the stern of the boat. Then move the gantry to forward of the keel an pick up the bow. Pull out the trailer.

 

[davidmhull]

Hi J. I agree that I should use some support. I think the transom is a great place to start due to the physics of having support in all directions from the transom itself. The gantry is not wheeled. The I beams are sunk four feet in the ground so it is very stationary.

 

[emergpa1]

Joe of Trinka, and ODay 23 was a gem and a gold mine of information. He was a long time contributor and one of the cornerstones of the Odayowners.com submenu here. He is greatly missed. This is the link to how he did it.

http://forums.oday.sailboatowners.com/album.php?albumid=2691

He would always remind us how dangerous it can be to move, lift and support a boat. Be Careful!

 

[LloydB]

I suggest that you not 'simply float' the boat off the trailer as you may want to take it off again in the future for boat painting. I had been watching this thread after it started and had thought that using the single strap under the keel would probably work but finding the right balance point would hardly be worth the effort or risk, having three points of support seems more safe. Since you built a gantry to lift your bucket off and on, you might check to see if the tractor would lift the back 1500 pounds of boat off the trailer. You wouldn't need to build a crib or cradle under the stern should that work. A single cargo strap placed just in front of the keel with a 2 inch strap would likely be lifting 2K lbs instead of one half of the boat weight and the strap would only be stressed ~ 1000 lbs because it is doubled. If you were really worried about the compression strain on the sides just lay a 2x4 stud across the deck between the strap. For the tongue extender the type you showed should be sufficient although if launching in very low slope or undeveloped ramps you might incorporate a wheeled dolly rather than depending on the wheel jack.

 

[rgranger]