Cradle or stands for a bilge keeler

"The trolling one". Why would anyone want to help somebody with that attitude?

I don't get it ... I cannot think of anyone here that would not help another. Not only by advice from experience or 'logic' - but also if geographically placed - physically.

I've moved countless boats in and out of yards so many times for so many reasons - I've lost count to be honest. To then be told "I'd guess you did a mediocre "good enough" job" just about takes the biscuit. No wonder the yard is not helping !!

It brings back memories of a guy I knew who could not get a marina place - he'd pissed off so many of the good yards with his arguing about fees and job invoices - that word got around.
His job lists to yard were 'legendary' and after job completed and yard invoiced - he'd argue that he didn't want this done - they'd done something else instead of what he wanted etc. Trouble was - yards had his WRITTEN instructions ...
 
Make up whatever justifications, tell yourselves whatever story you want, but that's what it's all about.

I know how to do a "good enough job". I know the sense and logic behind doing a "good enough job". I know "good enough jobs" are good enough.

However, I need and want, due to circumstances the full extent of which you don't know, to do something different and better.

The bottomline is, you(s) didn't answer the question and, in all honesty, I think you(s) didn't know the answer ... know that it was possible ... and couldn't admit it. And you were about the 3 or 4th person to do so.

Even when confronted with the visual evidence of 5,000lb Westerly Centaur sitting on 4 strips of 18mm ply.

Let's read that again.

Even when confronted with the visual evidence of 5,000lb Westerly Centaur sitting on 4 strips of 18mm ply.

At that point, I would have stopped regurgitating what I knew and thought, "Oh, it is possible ... let's work out how". That cradle certainly has given me ideas for a solution, thank you guardian.

It's a good discipline to,

a) Answer the question asked, not what you think is being asked.
b) If you don't understand why, ask why. And,
c) if you don't, STFU.

Unfortunately, in my first real job, I was trained by a navy chief engineer and "good enough" would have had your ass kicked. It had to be right. And you answered what was asked immediately.
 
I think I have lost the 'will to live' on this thread, several forum items with extensive experience have made reasonable comments and suggestions, the main one that a cradle is not the optimum solution for a bilge keeler, (as a side comment I have seem a Westerly Fulmar BK on 18mm ply), obviously the cradle makers will be happy to have sur-la-mer's money for a cradle that isn't IMHO necessary, but fine if 's-l-m' wants to pay hundreds for a cradle rather than £50 for a couple of old railway sleepers + a few more quid for a trolley jack that's 'his?' choice, just don't bother to offer any advice to s-l-m in the future.
 
cradle makers will be happy to have sur-la-mer's money

As written more than once, cradles, props and stands are all free with cost of hardstanding storage. As are wooden sleepers.


Do you guys not get my frustration?

You're clearly not reading what's been written, and filling up a discussion with the repetition of the same cruft. Then when I point it out, you get all huffy, throw your toys out of the pram, and now start to organise the black balling!


Friends, there's what's may be optimum for the boat (which I will dispute), and what's optimum for the time of the person who has to do the work.

It's a time management issue.


Perhaps many of you don't have to work any more, and fit everything in around that?


Take me through the time and number of procedures, and equipment, required to do it your way. Seriously, logic it out and see what you are suggesting.
 
Oh I just give up !

There's always one who thinks they have a unique problem and no other solution is possible. You try to help - they throw it in your face .....

I'd really like to know the 'true' background and reality of this trolls idea he can just insult those who try to help. As another says - time he's wasted posting that we don't have a clue about it all - he could have jacked her up ... been well on his way to finishing whatever 'unique' work he had planned.

I'm glad I'm not his Yard manager !! He must be a real 'hoot' to sort with !!
 
There's always one who thinks they have a unique problem ...
There's always some patronising old fart at the bar of every yacht club who thinks he knows everything and doesn't listen to the question asked, that you can't stop talking one he starts. *

Generally one who's wife and kids gave up listening to a long time ago.


Here's someone doing it low tech on a Kingfisher 20. This system could be improved by using a contoured support instead of chocks, but worked. They wanted to do precisely the same work I do.

Below that is a system for a drop keel by Tennamast which would probably work, dimensions allowing. Wood block on central support.

* I was also brought to believe that talking about someone in the room as if they were not there was very bad manners, that would probably lead to them being taught a lesson in manners.



imag5319-b.jpg


Drop-Keel-Cradle-4.jpg
 
Here's another small bilge keel boat up on a stand, to give good access to the plates. I don't recognise it, may be a Robert Tucker?

Frankly, Refueler, no one but a moron with nothing better to do with their time would start to do the job as your propose which isn't an "other solution". It's just the way people might do it without thinking.

Think it through. Tell me how many times one is going to have to jack one side up after the other, how many additional days one is going to have to wait for it to dry at each stage, how compromised the final finish will be, and so on.

Screen Shot 2020-05-31 at 00.30.15.png,
 
And, last but not least, here's probably the way *not* to do ... but, if all else fails, it's a certainly a sure way to do one keel at a time.

If anyone would like to start a topic for trading insults with me, I'll be happy to join them there (although I will win), but let's keep this one on topic, and clear for the sake of sharing actually beneficial information.


Yacht Disaster 007.jpg
 
S-l-m when you do the job could you post pictures here so we can learn from how you solved your problem?

This is a great place for sharing information and advice. Most of the advice you received was excellent, but new ideas are always interesting.

Mine is a bilge-keeler and at some stage I will have to do more work on the keels. Normally I would jack them up on blocks but if there is a better way I am keen to learn.

(Though I’ve never been anywhere where cradles are free.)
 
There's always some patronising old fart at the bar of every yacht club who thinks he knows everything and doesn't listen to the question asked, that you can't stop talking one he starts. *

Generally one who's wife and kids gave up listening to a long time ago.


Here's someone doing it low tech on a Kingfisher 20. This system could be improved by using a contoured support instead of chocks, but worked. They wanted to do precisely the same work I do.

Below that is a system for a drop keel by Tennamast which would probably work, dimensions allowing. Wood block on central support.

* I was also brought to believe that talking about someone in the room as if they were not there was very bad manners, that would probably lead to them being taught a lesson in manners.



imag5319-b.jpg


Drop-Keel-Cradle-4.jpg


OK - SLM ... gloves off ....

1. The Kingfisher has far better access because he's supported only on two tranverse beams. EXACTLY as I described to you back at start of this ridiculous charade. You even say : "
They wanted to do precisely the same work I do."

Bet they did it without all the fuss and crap you seem to want to give out.

2. The cradle system you then show - try getting your arse in and out around those metal suports and central box section. I GUARANTEE you will be blocking the boat up to try and beat that little problem.

As to the next post showing the sad boat on her side ........... stop showing idiocy ... anyone with a brain cell can understand that is a casualty .... not unheard of when a boat washes up and gets bashed. I've had to survey and write Reports on a number of similar ...

As to : "* I was also brought to believe that talking about someone in the room as if they were not there was very bad manners, that would probably lead to them being taught a lesson in manners." ..... lucky that we are miles apart. Your thread - YOU have reduced to that of ridiculous obstinacy.

As I and others have asked : We are all waiting to see photos and a nice article on the BETTER way of doing the job that thousands before have done without insulting others as you have seem intent on. Maybe PBO could give you a few pages in the magazine ??

If you are so clever - why did you ask us for opinion on cradles ?? If all you ever intended to do was to use a cradle - then why ask ?
We fully realise and understood your first post - YOU fail to understand why and what others have replied ...
If you stopped being so obstinate - if you were to join the real world - maybe the Yard guys would listen to you / even help you. Somehow I doubt it though. You seem to have done a good job of alienating yourself.

Waiting with baited breath your solution and photos ...
 
As to the next post showing the sad boat on her side ........... stop showing idiocy

It was a joke, to lighten things up. You obviously didn't get it.


No, the yard put beams longitudinally under the keels, not transversely upon piles like that, hence limiting access under them. It was no better than being on the ground except, perhaps, to dry off. Or offered blocks/chocks front and back, meaning having to raise and lower each corner to work on it which was no good for me. Actually, being able to work on one's back under the hull was OK, as one could acquire better leverage, but it was of no help at all in the doing the keels which is the main purpose of it all.

I wasn't after more room under the hull, or intent on doing an annual slop of anti-fouling, just to be able to work the edges of the keels.

Like you, they appeared to find it difficult to grasp what the real issue was and just wanted to do what they always did (actually, just not do any work at all), without asking whether it was what was required.

As a philosophical aside, ascribed to the great Henry Ford,
If you always do, what you've always done, you'll always get, what you've always gotten
There's another one about the insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
 
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