TotalBoat Trailer-Mounted Boat Lift

[ednlorna]

Hi,

I'm considering purchasing the "TotalBoat Trailer-Mounted Boat Lift to work on my Albin 25 while it is on the trailer.

Has anyone used this product?

Here is the link:

https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/u ... viewHeader

ednlorna

[kerrye]

Looks like an interesting system. I have not use such a system.

[DesertAlbin736]

"Chines" is the operative word here, 'cuz A25's being round hulls don't have chines. So I don't know that I'd thrust them not to slip. Besides that, the keel is not supported & you're putting the full weight of the boat on those four small points.

[WillieC]

What a great idea. Like Steve says, I'd have to look closely where to place those babies. Also a few HD support blocks under the keel would not hurt.

Alternately, I bought a pair of boat jacks, Brownell, 29" to jack up the back of the boat off the trailer. Then I spent a good while using keel blocks and hydraulic bottle jack inching the trailer forward and clear out of the way. Then a bunch of 2X8s wedged under the deck at the rubrail. I like a clear workspace and that got it. Having the trailer still in the way seems like it would be difficult to do serious scraping and grinding. A simple bottom paint recoat may be fine using this method, but I pretty much lived under our boat for a couple of weeks, maybe 8-10 hours of actual scraping time with 2" carbide scraper to get to bare hull, then a few hours of sanding, cleaning patching, etc. The epoxy primer and bottom paint was the easy part.

Slipping the trailer back under was just the reverse operation. There are a few good videos showing the process.

[DesertAlbin736]

I bought a pair of boat jacks, Brownell, 29" to jack up the back of the boat off the trailer. Then I spent a good while using keel blocks and hydraulic bottle jack inching the trailer forward and clear out of the way.

Sounds like what I did for our bottom job. Only I had access to a gantry crane with chain fall to the lift the front & a forklift to raise the back & slide the trailer out from under. Then bottle jacks, cinder blocks, jack stands & a half dozen boat yard type hull stands to support the keel & hull.

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[Beta Don]

"Chines" is the operative word here, 'cuz A25's being round hulls don't have chines. So I don't know that I'd thrust them not to slip. Besides that, the keel is not supported & you're putting the full weight of the boat on those four small points.

I agree - I don't see how this could lift an A25

I'll bet this kit comes with several pages of legal exclusions!

If you look at the photo, the plates on the hull are out near the edge, just under the chines. Those plates only flex 18 degrees which is fine for a boat with a hard chine directly over the trailer frame, but for a round bilge boat like an A25, there would be no safe place to put them and only 18 degrees of flex wouldn't allow them to fit the hull

Also, the kit only has 12 inches of travel and I would imagine it would take half of that to get the boat picked up. Working on a boat with the trailer still under it with only 6 or 8 inches of clearance would not be my idea of practical . . . . nor worth $600

Like others, I took my A27 completely off the trailer using jacks and braced it up in the yard. A year later, I put it on a new trailer I had designed and welded up myself, again using jacks and just one other person. I feel really good now, knowing I saved myself $600!

Don

[ednlorna]

If you study the website's Q/A, an Albin 25 owner asked if the lift would work on an Albin 25 given that the chines are 1.5 inches wide. The answer was yes.

[DesertAlbin736]

If you study the website's Q/A, an Albin 25 owner asked if the lift would work on an Albin 25 given that the chines are 1.5 inches wide. The answer was yes.

Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances!

[Beta Don]

Looking at the above photos of La Dolce Vita, are those chines really a full 1.5 inches wide? Front and rear?

Don

[WillieC]

Now you made me walk out there and look at it...

Actually, it is about and inch and a half at the skinniest section, in line with the engine. It widens out to almost three inches moving forward until it fades into the prow. Towards the rear it widens out to a decent width for a regular boat stand at the transom.

I agree with you, Don. Save the dough, get the trailer out from under it since, as I recall, this OP's boat has blister repair. Working room is half the fight.

Now once repaired and fifteen coats of two-part epoxy and seven coats of bottom paint, you could get away with lifting the boat above the rollers for minor touch ups about forty years from now.

[DesertAlbin736]

Looking at the above photos of La Dolce Vita, are those chines really a full 1.5 inches wide? Front and rear?

Well yes, but....

In this picture taken during an early stage of sanding old paint off you can see where the trailer frame is in relation to the outer edge of the hull & where the bunks are. What I had done here was do as much sanding as possible while the boat was still on the trailer, then pulled the trailer to finish the rest. Even if one could bolt the trailer lift on the outside of the frame, at least the way our trailer is, it would be well inboard of "chines".

0404161022.jpg

Only then did we pull the trailer to finish the rest of the sanding & do the painting. You'll notice we secured those boat stands with chains & come-alongs to the ones on the opposite side.

DSCN3613.JPG

[kerrye]

Just a note on concrete blocks in those circumstances--they aren't a good idea. They can crack and fail. Wooden blocks are better. Neighbor in the next slot on the storage yard where I keep my camper had his fifth wheel blocked up with concrete blocks and they all cracked and collapsed.

[jleonard]

The boat should not slip off the pads since you will be jacking it straight up and the trailer holds the jacks in position width wise.
Of course you could easily modify some standard boat stands for less $$.

[DesertAlbin736]

Just a note on concrete blocks in those circumstances--they aren't a good idea.

Yes, perhaps. In this case the load was spread more or less evenly between five points along the length of the keel, in which if the entire weight of the boat had been solely supported by those blocks then each would be supporting roughly 1,000 lbs each, not counting the partial support of the hull stands. The six hull stands themselves could have supported the boat if one or more keel blocks failed, not to mention that the bow still had some support from the gantry crane. The cinder blocks were brand new, not old weathered ones found laying around, and were sitting on a level concrete floor. But I agree wood blocks would be better, especially if this had been a long term storage situation. One mistake I did make was not having a spreader bar between the ends of the strap used to lift the bow, and it did cause some minor damage to the edge of the foredeck. So those are two things I'd do differently.

It's now two years since that job was done in April 2016, & since the boat is mostly kept dry stored on the trailer the paint job is nearly as pristine today and it was the day it was applied, and the type of ablative paint used was suitable for dry storage. Since that time it's been in salt water for a total of 53 days, plus around 10 days in fresh water in one or two night increments.