Stainless Davits

[ianc1200]

Is it usual to buy davits already made up from a specialist (are there any?), or go to a local marine stainless steel manufacturer to have made individually? I'm wanting something to hold an Avon 3.1m Rib with a 5hp two stroke, which from a previous thread on here might be in total about 100kgs, this for an Aquastar 38, perhaps with telescopic arms to lift then pull closer to the transom. I believe the fixing would be through the transom with internal reinforcing plate. I found an advert with a couple of photo's as an example;

 

[PaulRainbow]

Those look very similar to mine Ian, they work well with my rib and outboard. You would need to sell some body parts to pay to have such things custom made. I know where there is a set of secondhand ones, i'll PM you details.

 

[PCUK]

Probably doesn't need saying but each davit should be able to take total weight individually.

 

[sharpness]

You sometimes see secondhand davits listed on eBay. Link below shows a pair currently listed (i have no connection to the listing etc).
Second hand, they will be made either by Whittall or Simpson. Both very good makes and hold a good secondhand value. If you were to purchase them brand new, they are I believe now made by Cooney marine and very expensive.

stainless steel boat davits | eBay

 

[Dino]

I have the same davits on my Broom. I bought them secondhand from a couple who had a gone cruising to the Caribbean in their yacht. They had them in storage. They came with the 90° angle brackets but they were bloody expensive. Most are supplied without the angle brackets so you will need to get them made. The main thing to look for is the width of the anchoring points so that the wires drop vertically. My anchoring points are narrower so the wires are at a slight angle and one has started to fray.

 

[Alicatt]

Just bought a pair of 500kg Davits from another boat in our marina for €650, they have never been used in anger.

A bit of overkill for the little dinghy we have, wish the original davits had been kept on the boat!

Hunter on the Oosterschelde around the middle 1990s


Here you can see the mounting plates on the transom.

 

[Tradewinds]

Just bought a pair of 500kg Davits from another boat in our marina for €650, they have never been used in anger. View attachment 187141

A bit of overkill for the little dinghy we have, wish the original davits had been kept on the boat!
View attachment 187142
Hunter on the Oosterschelde around the middle 1990s

View attachment 187143
Here you can see the mounting plates on the transom.

I think you'll look back on them as a bit of a bargain at the price you paid esp. as you already have the mounting brackets in place.

 

[ianc1200]

Just bought a pair of 500kg Davits from another boat in our marina for €650, they have never been used in anger. View attachment 187141

A bit of overkill for the little dinghy we have, wish the original davits had been kept on the boat!
View attachment 187142
Hunter on the Oosterschelde around the middle 1990s

View attachment 187143
Here you can see the mounting plates on the transom.

Does the brackets have plates inside? Looks very solid!

 

[Greg2]

As already advised, stainless davits were primarily made by Simpson and Whittall, and Cooney are now the major player and still use the Simpson name for one of their range.

Having previously bought davits second hand twice and knowing that they can be pretty rare to the market I removed and retained the second set from our Broom 41 when we sold it. They sat in the garage for several years before we decided to fit them to our current Hardy earlier this year. Fortunately Hardy had included reinforced pads in the hull when they built the boat so we just had to get some mountings fabricated by Marine Weld who did all the stainless for work for Hardy when they were built in Norfolk. The shape of the hull made it a bit tricky and unfortunately they had disposed of the templates they had for Hardy about a year beforehand but they did a good job.

 

[Alicatt]

Does the brackets have plates inside? Looks very solid!

You mean the mounting brackets on the boat? Then yes it is reenforced with plates on the inside of the transom.

 

[Greg2]

Does the brackets have plates inside? Looks very solid!

Usually a piece of thick marine ply glassed to the hull to spread the load and either large penny washers or metal plates on the nuts/bolts.

 

[Bandit]

I have an AS 48s I use Snap davits as is did on a previous boat. I also had a Fairline 36 Sedan with Wittall davits, it was a Pita and was in the way, cost more for mooring and filled up with water.

I suggest Snap davits but you gave to take off the Outboard.

 

[Greg2]

I have an AS 48s I use Snap davits as is did on a previous boat. I also had a Fairline 36 Sedan with Wittall davits, it was a Pita and was in the way, cost more for mooring and filled up with water.

I suggest Snap davits but you gave to take off the Outboard.

Snap davits certainly have their place and we had them for a while on the Hardy ( and a couple of sports cruisers) but they limited what we could have as a tender. They were fine for 2.7m 3D airdeck tender that came with the Hardy but we wanted the 3.1m AB aluminium hulled RIB with 15hp outboard that we had also kept in the garage for several years so needed proper davits..

Design of the main boat will influence which are best as tenders on snaps can also get in the way on some boats and whilst rainwater can be an issue with traditional davits it can be avoided by leaving the bung out in the tender and lowering the aft end when in the marina so rainwater just drains out.

Horses for courses and the type of tender and design of the main boat will dictate what type of davits are required but snap davits are definitely worth considering
.

 

[oldgit]

It looks like you could use snap connectors with that swim platform.

First thing to consider is are you actually going to use that dinghy.
A rubber dinghy on davits probably evolved from when everybody moored midstream on a buoy , a heavy old wood dinghy was your only method of getting ashore for vittals and importantly to the pub, unless a large vessel this was always towed behind your craft.
Some bright spark decided that if you hauled your heavy old wooden dinghy on board your heavy old wooden boat it would save you pulling it behind you.
Time went on and outdrives were invented.
No plastic boat over a certain size could possibly leave the factory without a set of davits installed and any boat builder worth his salt would sensibly install half ton of steel inside the transom to stop the dinghy/ davits/transom departing en mass in any decent sea.
So we now have a lot of added weight just where you really dont want it .
If your home mooring is a marina or pontoon, the chap with the tape measure is rubbing his hands with glee as he adds the davits and dinghy to your bill. Mooring away, exactly the same and all you have to do when mooring is to try to not hit the boat behind with your dinghy as you squeeze into the last available pig to get into mooring.
Walk around any marina or boatyard.
50% of dinghies sagging on davits have not touched water in years, most will have more rain water in them than air in the tubes.
Some of them will require several hours of work untangling those stiff stainless cables and sorting jammed winches.
Always fun watching your davit owner struggling to remove the inevitable ropes used to secure the dinghy while underway.
Removing that expensive cover to stop rain water getting in
Releasing the winch pawls then gamely attempting to lower the dinghy evenly into the water without it hanging up on one side or worse jamming.

Snap Davits .
Give the dinghy a good shove and its in the water securely and firmly still attached to the boat, dry as bone inside and ready to pop on your outboard and .............away.

 

[Alicatt]

A lot of the meeren (lakes) around here have no landing stages and the water can be quite shallow so anchoring off and using the dinghy to get ashore is done a lot. Even our last boat had too much of a draught to come alongside in a lot of the canals as we found out when wanting to tie up to have lunch.

The length of Hunter is 11.3m to the edge of the swim platform which puts her in the 12m category, the new davits will take her up to 11.9m so she is still in the 12m category, the havenmeester has already been out with his tape measure...

Originally Hunter came with davits fitted but somewhere along the way they disappeared, which is a shame as the original ones folded against the stern and these ones will be fixed.

Part of the regulations here is that you must have an unobstructed ladder to get out of the water in case you fall in, and snap davits would block that function of the ladder, having the dinghy on the davits then that at least allows you to use the ladder to get on to the swim platform and out of the water on our boat.

Having the air floor dinghy allows me to pack her up and take her with me in the car to places where we would like to use the boat but are not able to take the big boat to, like this coming trip back home to Scotland we will be taking the dingy with us to use on Loch Lomond.

 

[JOHNPEET]

I have snaps on our boat which are set up so that we can still access the swim platform down the ladder from the raised aft deck and the folding ladder that drops down into the water. Also important for us is retaining the ability to fully open the hatch from the aft cabin to the swim platform, as this acts as one of our emergency escape routes.
Having to de mount and mount the 5hp outboard onto the dinghy is a bit of a pain, but this lives on a bracket on the swim platform side strut when not on the dinghy, so at least I don’t have to lift it up onto the aft deck!

I’d upload a couple of photos but can’t work out how to resize them at the moment!

 

[JOHNPEET]

There you go!

 

[ianc1200]

Johnpeet - is that an air deck inflatable or similar? Is it hanging or supported somehow by the swim platform?

In my case, the RIB was so heavy, I did manage to get it up onto the swim platform, but it was a real effort, plus it needed to be lifted vertically up onto the swim platform when vertical.

 

[JOHNPEET]

Johnpeet - is that an air deck inflatable or similar? Is it hanging or supported somehow by the swim platform?

In my case, the RIB was so heavy, I did manage to get it up onto the swim platform, but it was a real effort, plus it needed to be lifted vertically up onto the swim platform when vertical.

Yes, inflatable air deck 3.2m. I think it weighs around 50kg

The weight of the tender is sitting on the snap davits, with the two stays then holding it off the transom so that we have clear access to the swim platform. We’re on a swinging mooring from April to the end of October, so this arrangement gets used a lot. The usual sequence when we arrive at the boat is to climb out of the dinghy onto the swim platform, clip the davits on, de mount the outboard (with the davits clipped on, the dinghy is really stable in the water to assist with this), then using a rope attached to the port side (furthest from the stern) of the dinghy, haul it up into the vertical position and attach the stays. It can also rest and be attached against the transom ladder but this does restrict our emergency egress through the hatch should we need it.
The snap davits can be detached from the swim platform when required, leaving just a stainless low profile “socket” in place. I made the stays myself and they attach to the guardrail stanchion and can be removed when not in use.

 

[Nauti Fox]

Bit of drift, anyone seen davits with supports like we have, no idea of the capacity....
It.s a Fairline 43-45 Sedan.