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Putting the rear of the boat in the boatlift first


MalibuNation

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MalibuNation

Anyone do this with a vertical Shore Station lift? I live on a typical MI lake ... nice drop off with sand in the shallow ... but muck the deeper. Bunks are easy to adjust and I think everything will clear.

I'm trying to keep the heavier end of my v-drive boat over sand and stopping the lift from sinking in the muck. I certainly wouldn't motor the boat in the lift ... would just walk it in. Thoughs?

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Anyone do this with a vertical Shore Station lift? I live on a typical MI lake ... nice drop off with sand in the shallow ... but muck the deeper. Bunks are easy to adjust and I think everything will clear.

I'm trying to keep the heavier end of my v-drive boat over sand and stopping the lift from sinking in the muck. I certainly wouldn't motor the boat in the lift ... would just walk it in. Thoughs?

3 things:

1. I didn't have a V-drive with my vertical lift, so I don't know how close to the center of gravity you can get, but I'd still think you'd want to balance the boat as much as possible by pulling forward as far as possible.

2. I have parked my boat in backwards temporarily but never lifted all the way out of the water.

3. I had a cantilever lift with my I/O that was in deep muck. I bought a sheet of 3/4" treated plywood and cut it into 2'x2' squares. I put the squares down into the muck under the legs. It significantly reduced the sinking. It was tough to get them flat and keep the legs from sliding around on them. It would have been better to bolt the wood to the feet out of the water first.

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On a friend's lift in MI, with a very heavy 26' IO...we made 2 sets of feet pads...used construction adhesive to glue 3 marine grade 3/4" 4'x8' sheets of plywood together for each of the deeper-water legs. And bolted the lift's feet to the whole 4'x8' pad. wouldn't sink for nothin'...so he put 2 50# sandbags on each foot.

Worked great. The only lift on the shore that was still level. Added an hour to putting it in and out, but was worth the extra work. Each 4x8 sheet was $30 if I remember right. So it's less than $200 worth of stuff to make a 5yr solution. Each year, he flips the pad over, so it bows the other direction.

I personally wouldn't put the boat in backwards. In my family, it would be just a matter of short time before my sons were in a hurry to catch smooth water, and didn't take the time to walk the boat off the lift, and caught the prop on the crossmember on the way out. Too expensive and totally inevitable.

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I don't think my prop will clear my cross bar on the lift. I may have my bunks a bit lower than I could but I was only concerned about clearing my tracking fins.

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MalibuNation

This winter I had 2 custom boatlift feet made ... but think they are just too darn heavy and now I'm thinking of using them in the shallow end.

Talking to my Bu dealer they've suggested using two 4'x4' sheets of marine plywood for each feet, then using 2 drywall screws to attach the feet to the plywood. Then in the fall when you go to pull the lift up and out the screws will snap as the wood will be in the muck and just find the plywood the following spring. Actually I might do this for several seasons and have a larger area of solid wood to put the lift's feet on.

I can't imagine trying to get a 4'x8' under each foot as they really would want to float and shoot up to the surface.

EDIT: I'm the only one to put and take the boat off the lift and certainly will be walking it on and not driving it on.

Edited by MalibuNation
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MalibuNation,

As you know, I have the same situation in our lake.

Here's what I've done in the past. Get a sheet of 3/4" plywood cut in half (two 4x4 sections). Menard's sells sheets like these so you don't have to wait to get them cut. As I'm putting the lift in, I slide these under the feet of the lift in the mucky part of the lake. It will sit a little high at first and the lift will sink down a little the first time you put your boat on it, but after that it won't sink any further. You are correct that these want to float, It's hard to geet them to stay under the feet.

I'm trying something different this year. I just bought a weedroller. It should clear out the weeds and much to solid ground. I'm running it right now and hoping the area where the lift will go is down to solid ground by this weekend. Depending on how solid the ground feels I may still put the plywood under the legs this year.

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My situation: the lift is trenched in the front to sit shallow enough. In the rear I have deep water extensions on the back legs. The depth goes from less than 3' in the front of the lift to over 6' at the back. So the front is in sand, but the back is on a steep decline, a bit mucky. I too bolted a 2'x2' sheet of plywood to each rear leg. Did that 10 years ago, and the same pieces of plywood are still on it. Treated, not marine grade. Then the other problem I had was the lift wanted to slide down the decline when cranking the boat up. To solve that, I use a chain that goes from each front leg around a post that is augered down in front of the lift. The post is in the ground 4 feet and sticks up about 6 inches with an eye bolt in the top to keep the chain from coming off the top. Then I put a removable pier section above that post, covering it and the chain, and allowing easy access into the boat from the bow. Works really well, the post stays in the ground, never comes out. When pulling the lift we just lift it up over the post. This way the lift is in exactly the same position each year when I put it in, zero adjustments are necessary.

Edit: Back to the topic, I would not go backwards, too many risks. Can you sell the lift and go with a permanent hoist?

Edited by Michigan boarder
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Add me to the group that thinks it's a bad idea to put your boat on the lift backwards. I've got a vertical lift, and am not convinced I have enough travel to get the cradle low enough to clear the running gear. Even so, it is an accident just waiting to happen.

My lift sits in the corner of a channel with a very soft, mucky bottom under one leg. I put a 2'x2'x3/4" sheet of treated plywood under that leg 10 years ago, and the lift hasn't sunk an inch since. (I have the luxury of leaving the lift in all winter, as there isn't any concern of ice flow in the channel.) When I first put that board there, I assumed I'd have to replace it every 5 years or so, but (knocking on wood) it still seems solid.

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MalibuNation

Thanks for all the advice ... I'm thinking wood isn't going to rot very fast with the lack of oxygen.

Someone mentioned these awhile back:

http://www.vikingboatlift.com/photos.html

Look at some of the winter pics ... I'm thinking I could get a couple of grand for my lift ... but the Viking was around $6K.

C L S, let me know how you like that weed roller ... A friend of a friend has one and likes it ... may I ask how much?

... thought about getting some of that muck removal products ... snake oil?????

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My brother-in-law lives on Oxbow Lake, and he has a pretty good solution. He rolled out Visqueen while piling a mixture of sand and pea gravel on top and smoothing it out. As he did this, it pushed the muck out from underneath. He did this years ago (may have been as many as 10), and it still looks great. He has his boat lift on this and the entire swim area is muck free. Also, before he did this, he would throw corn (just a few cans of kernel corn) all around the area. The carp would come to eat the corn, and in doing so, pull the weeds up. After a few weeks, the area was all weed free. He then rolled out the Visqueen/sand/gravel to make a 30'x80' area. It is extremely solid and stable. When you walk out past the end (a little difficult as it is about 5 1/2' deep), it is VERY mucky and soft. I would recommend doing something like this.

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Great idea (kernaltao), I have the same problem, very mucky bottom that has been accumulating recently. My concern would be the muck coming back in and settling on the sand/visqueen. I like the corn idea.

Another risk in rear to shore boat loading, if the level goes down to where the boat has difficulty coming off the lift, it will be impossible to get the boat off. Standard direction, you can at least push the boat off and it will go towards deeper water, even if it takes a tractor to push it!

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