Perhaps a different hoist out of the water.

W

William_H

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i don't know if this style of lifting is common in UK. Helped a friend prepare his boat for lifting. A 22ft fin keel. At a concrete wharf arrangement the forklift truck drops tines into the water operator adjusts the spacing of the tines. Move boat over the tines and up she goes. Boat was then driven over to the wash down area and finally dropped onto a cradle for the work to be done. He has 2 weeks paying by the day to clean and paint before relaunch. A bit awe inspiring watching this boat driven across the yard looking up at what seems like 20 ft up. Yes a fairly stout fork lift truck. NB in the background this company do permanent storage of Mobos in racks 3 high. They will launch and remove on demand. ol'willIMG_0001.jpg
 
From here.

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I see how that makes sense for a small mobo though. All the weight at the stern, and the lift points aren't that different to a bunked trailer.
 
There is a local yard that does that on the Charente Esturary, though most of the sailing boats are shifted with a hydraulic lift trailer behind a tractor.
Over on the Is de Ré there is a small submersible remote control travel lift. Powered by a diesel that breathes though a snorkle. Runs down the slip under the floating boat, lifts it, then comes back up, adjust the lifting straps to level the load. Neat.

The first yard has limited pontoon space, so you just phone up and say when you are coming and they drop the boat in. Certain number of lifts included in your yearly charge.
 
Daydream believer said:
With a curved hull that must put a lot of pressure on a single point each side, due to the arms being straight
Limited in size of boat as well
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Judging by the cosmetics I don't think the owners care for it much. :ROFLMAO: It looks like rubber D section fendering on the forks, so there is some load spreading; not a gentle process though.
 
The better thing to do is put the forks about deck level and pass slings under the boat.

The forks are fine for most RIBs, as the hulls tend to be strainght planing sections at the back and that's where most of the weight is.
 
boatiebert said:
Good point, Tern. The current system could be improve by having pivoting arms or attachments that took the angle of the hulls.
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The current system is perfectly fine for the boats it’s intended for - small to mid-size mobos with relatively straight hull lines, designed to potentially be transported on trailers, and without a ballast keel. To answer OleWill’s question - yes, dry-stacks using specially-designed forklifts like this are fairly common here. The one I know best is at Trafalgar Wharf where they have a vast shed (originally a shipbuilding facility) containing up to six tiers of stored boats:

IMG_23May2021at110717.jpg
(This is taken from about halfway along, and there’s a similar rack along the other side of the building to the right of the shot)

The Traf Wharf guys do have strops that they can hang between the forks to lift other kinds of boats, but they rarely do because if a boat won’t fit the forks then it also won’t fit the storage racks or the more easily-accessible maintenance racks and is unlikely to be based at the site. The owner would have to provide their own cradle or trailer and as far as I know they don’t offer storage space for such things. It’s very much set up for a standardised service of “ring them on Friday night, drive down Saturday morning to find your boat alongside the waiting pontoon, hand it back Saturday or Sunday evening”. The yard handle the lifting including warping the boat in and out of the lifting bay, and they give the boats a quick hose-down on the way into the shed. I think owners rarely see their boats on the forks or in the stack, that part happens while they’re are at home or driving to and from.

Pete
 
boatiebert said:
The latter wouldn't work if you were lifting a boat up to the third shelf.
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If you have a boat which cannot sit on the forks, what are you going to do with it at the third shelf anyway? The “shelves” are timber rails similar to the forks.

In any case, curvy boats are generally sailing boats, meaning they have masts and don’t play well with multi-tier racking.

Pete
 
There is a similar facility in Plymouth. On a wet and windy Saturday morning they did not launch any of the booked boats until owner turned up - quite sensible as no owners bothered to turn up!
It works well for the market its aimed at, occasional users of small mobos who have trouble keeping their props clean if left in the water. But quite obviously not sailing boats.
 
Yes. The nearest thing I’m aware of for sailing boats is the one-design racing fleet (don’t remember what class) based at Shepherd’s in Cowes. But rather than a forklift and racks, each boat has its own trailer for storage and movement around the yard (since they can’t be stacked to save space) and they launch them using a large Hiab hooking onto lifting strops provided inside the boat as part of the class spec.

Pete
 
I used to crew sometimes on an X119, ~40ft boat, which has a lifting point on top the keel, with a little hatch in the deck above it.
Saves all that faff with strops and you can wash the whole hull.
Not sure why more boats aren't like that!

When KB in Portsmouth first got their mega forklift, they did lift a few small yachts with it using strops. I think they are full up with RIBs etc now?
 
Okay for planing hulls, but I wouldn't fancy lifting a beamy sailing boat. Travel hoist is a much kinder option.
 
When in the Caribbean with insufficient tidal range , I was forced to pay for an actual haul out on a 22” draft bilge keeler, having rubbed away the antifouling ( scrub lightly whilst swimming every 3 days until no paint left )
The boat was lifted by forklift athwartships , ie the tip and toe of each keel sat on the tines..
The bloke said later ‘‘ that is the cheapest haul out bill I have ever written” . Got a cold beer for that one too, he did ?
 
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