Sailboat stands:

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Jan 24, 2005
4,881
Oday 222 Dighton, Ma.
OK guys. Here's the scoop on the boat stands. I bought them at Brownell's Boatyard in Mattapoisett Ma where they make them.
http://www.boatstands.com/ This place is right in your back yard Peter. I have the SB-3 sailboat stands but if you have a larger boat, you need to find out which stand is best for your boat by checking the info on their site.

As I've mentioned in the past about boat stands. They were never made to raise a boat, but these particular stands are strong enough to raise mine and I also raised my friend Ray's O'Day 26 with them by placing four in the stern portion and using a hydraulic jack under the bow.

I picked up a straight powerboat stand in a yard sale for $15 and I use it in conjunction with the hydraulic jack under the bow.
I usually start off with four jacks, two on each side close together near the stern, plus some 6X6X 3.5" blocks crisscrossed under the stern.

Last year I bought two large car stands in a yard sale for 15 bucks and I used one of them under the keel for an extra added safety precaution. I placed a wood block between the top of the stand and the bottom of the keel. I also use a block on my jack.

I usually place a couple of planks or 6x6s on the trailer under the bow and jack up the bow from them. Then, the powerboat stand is placed under the bow closer to the front of the keel.
After the boat is raised up high enough to clear the trailer bunks, the hydraulic jack is let down and the trailer can be rolled forward a little until a cross member rests up against the bow stand.
Of course it helps if you can loosen your keel boards and slide them to one side out of the way, which is very easy with those brackets that I told you about in previous posts.

I'm sure that you get the idea by now of how I do it.
If you're going to do this, just remember that it's dangerous and a lot of unforeseen dangers can crop up if you don't think it through.

The trailer needs to be on level ground and the boat needs to be kept level as you're raising or lowering it. If for instance the bow is lower than the stern, the boat can tip over off the stands sideways or fall off the stands forward.

If you have to do this in an area that isn't level, you can always use planks under the wheels of the low side.

After the boat is up high and clear of the bunks, the trailer level won't make a difference but when you go to finally lower the boat back down on the trailer you need to make the trailer level.

When you get through and finally are able to get the trailer under the boat again and the keel is not going to line up with the keel board on the trailer, you can slide the trailer over by placing a plank on the ground under the middle axle and raise the trailer wheels off the ground and pull or push the trailer by hand and line it up with the bottom of the keel. Just make sure that the boat is high enough off the ground and clear of the trailer bunks.

This is a long slow process that is not only dangerous but time consuming. I was achy when I got through doing it last week.

A friend of my on this forum named Brad down in the Carolina's came up with a good idea for holding the stern of his O'Day 222 and I've been thinking of building one like it to use for holding the bow of my boat. That way, once you get the boat jacked up, you place this beam with the two saw horses under the boat, and just roll the trailer forward out from under the boat in one easy operation. A small metal eye beam about 10 to 12' long would work, or a wood beam like Brad's might provide enough clearance over the trailer bunks to work. I'm really not too sure. I think that a 10 or 12' galvy square stock trailer tongue could be used for a beam in conjustion with the horses. The thinner and stronger the beam is, the less height is needed for the trailer to clear the hull, I think.
So that's it in a nut shell. If you choose to do this, think it through as you go along and take your time. Above all, take every precaution by utilizing every safeguard you can. By that I mean, placing shoring blocks under the hull in the stern area, and shoring under the keel as soon as it gets clear of the last trailer cross member. Remember one thing,---if you get killed doing this, I'll never speak to you again. :D The horse/beam picture posted is from Brad's posting on this site. Many thanks to Brad for posting it. Also, many thanks to Brad for giving me the idea of using Trex on my boat.
Joe
 

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caguy

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Sep 22, 2006
4,004
Catalina, Luger C-27, Adventure 30 Marina del Rey
The other possibilty and I think a little safer is to raise the boat by supporting it at the back and bow then lower the trailer by removing the wheels. I did this on the Luger 30 which is about 7000 lbs. I was able to bottom paint the boat and replace the bunks and keel support planks.
 

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Jan 24, 2005
4,881
Oday 222 Dighton, Ma.
The other possibilty and I think a little safer is to raise the boat by supporting it at the back and bow then lower the trailer by removing the wheels. I did this on the Luger 30 which is about 7000 lbs. I was able to bottom paint the boat and replace the bunks and keel support planks.
I've never thought of that one Frank. That's a good way to do it on a 30' keel boat. In my case though, I need to get the trailer out of there so I can drop my centerboard all the way down. I forgot to mention that in my thread.

My boat only weighs 2200 lbs empty and my stands can hold that weight.
What I do is give each poppet about three turns each and I add shoring under the keel as I raise the hull up just as a precaution. When I get the bottom of the keel about 18" off the ground, I remove the shoring from under the keel and use it to shore up under the stern. I also add shoring blocks under the bow close to the front of the keel. I'll crank the hull down and let it rest on the shoring blocks, then I'll dig a hole under the keel to let my centerboard all the way down so I can bottom paint it, and also the keel.
When the keel is dry, usually the next day, I'll pull the board back up into the slot, fill in the hole, and start shoring up under the keel with my crisscrossed 6X6 wood blocks and start bottom painting the hull.

I place a small square piece of carpet on each of my poppet boards and if I need to place a stand under the hull after the paint is somewhat dry, I place a piece of wax paper between the carpet and the hull.

My boat's keel is flat on the bottom and the boat can sit on the keel shoring with no problem as long as the hull is straight and level, the boat will stay in that position.
I'll sometimes need to remove a boat stand in the stern to paint that area in one shot. What I normally do is take a couple of 2X6 planks and wedge them under the gunwale to the ground on that side, and just remove the boatstand.
Years ago when I first started bottom painting that boat, I went down to "Worst Marine" and bought a gallon of their el cheapo ablative bottom paint and a quart of primer. Like a dumbbell I neglected to read the directions on the can of primer and I found out that the primer needed to be tacky in order for the bottom paint to adhere to it. "What to do." "How the heck am I going to paint the boat with the boat stands under it?" Then a light bulb came on and I decided to wedge several 2X4s and 2X6s under the gunwales to the ground. I had some long spikes to stick into the ground behind each plank so they wouldn't kick out. Then I removed all the sailboat stands from under the boat and did the whole bottom.
I wish I had taken a picture of that.

That bottom paint was the worst crap I've ever used. After it dried, it stunk for days. It even stunk when I brought it down the club and put it in the water. I could smell that stuff while the boat was sitting in the water and it took quite a while for it to go away.
About mid August of that year, my boat was sailing so slow that I thought I forgot to pull my anchor up. I had a good wind, but the boat was barely crawling so I pulled into a shallow cove down by Bristol RI and got into the water to check out the bottom. The bottom had a thick soft mat of marine growth that came off in sheets as I used my 10" wide putty knife to scrape it off. No wonder she was crawling along under sail. I pulled her out in September and brought her home and did the whole hull over again with Super Shipbottom Ablative paint and have been using it ever since.
Live and learn.
Joe
 
Dec 15, 2011
103
Oday 20 SF Bay Area/Monterey Bay
Thanks for the info Joe. I had figured the problem out for getting the boat off of the trailer, I just needed a close look at or a source for the stands to safely support the hull while working on it.
 
Jan 24, 2005
4,881
Oday 222 Dighton, Ma.
Thanks for the info Joe. I had figured the problem out for getting the boat off of the trailer, I just needed a close look at or a source for the stands to safely support the hull while working on it.
I started doing this stuff back in the mid 1970s and it was fun.
After I bought this O'Day 222 I wanted to try taking it off the trailer so I went out and bought my sailboat stands.

My boat came with a single axle Load-Rite roller trailer with 15" wheels and this made it very easy to get the boat off and on the trailer.

To get the boat off the trailer, I tied the stern off to a 10' bar stuck in the ground and the the bar was roped off to a tree in the back yard.

I set my sailboat stand up under the stern, two on each side and raise the hull up a little. Then I'd put a little slack in my trailer winch cable and pull the trailer out from under my boat a little at a time with my pickup truck.

As soon as the keel was behind the last cross member, I'd jack up the bow from the trailer or the ground and put shoring blocks under the keel, release the winch cable and pull the trailer out of there.

I used a set of blocks on the rope between the stern and the iron bar to tweak things up just in case the boat started to move forward due to the stretch of the ropes.

When it came time to load the boat on the trailer I didn't need the truck at all. I merely lined up the trailer with the bow and connected the winch to the bow eye and winched the trailer under the boat. This took about 20 minutes believe it or not. It was a heck of a lot easier with a roller trailer than it is now with my Long tandem bunk trailer.
I loved that roller trailer but it was always nickle and diming me to death after a while. Since I've own the Long Mfg trailer, I don't miss the Load-Rite at all.
Trying to do this with a bunk trailer has been a real challenge though. I really don't like the way I'm doing it. I'm looking at finding a way to suspend my bow with a beam. This is the key to doing it fast and safe I think.
There's a company out there that is manufacturing a gantry for lifting the bow of a boat. I remember seeing it on the web. Big bucks though.
Joe
 

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