Help! Building a Dock

[scott51580]

I am having a dock built on lake Nasworthy in San Angelo, Texas. Nasworthy is a constant level lake, so the dock will be fixed dock. It will have a 12' x 24' dock with an upper deck and then a 12' x 24' covered boat slip that will be built to be able to add a lift later on.

My main concern is the boat slip. Is 12' going to be wide enough. I have an 06 VLX and the beam I believe measures 8'2. With the wake board racks on each side of the tower and boards in them, will it make the boat wider than 12'. My boat is in San Angelo and I am in Midland, so I can't measure it. Another question, how tall should the roof be? The floor of the dock will be about 16" off of the water. Right now I am planning on the roof being about 7'6 - 8' off of the floor of the dock. I know this will give plenty of room for the boat with the tower up to fit under while its in the water, but if I add a boat lift will it have enough room to be lifted out of the water with the tower up?

Does anyone have a dock with a coverd lift and a VLX that could give me any suggestions or anyone who has had a dock built have anything else I need to think about?

Its a pretty big investment and I want it to work out right.

Thanks in a advance for any suggestions.

Scott

[Gordo]

If I were you I would locate some builder who has built boathouses on your lake before. I would also look at his past work. One idea is to hike down to the Guadalupe River below Austin to the chain of constant level lakes (Lake Dunlap, Lake McQueeny, Lake Placid). Those "lakes" (narrow rivers damned up) have boat house every 100' for miles, so you can look at many examples. You might contact the contractor(s) who build in that area for ideas/plans.

[Ronnie]

I am having a dock built on lake Nasworthy in San Angelo, Texas. Nasworthy is a constant level lake, so the dock will be fixed dock. It will have a 12' x 24' dock with an upper deck and then a 12' x 24' covered boat slip that will be built to be able to add a lift later on.

My main concern is the boat slip. Is 12' going to be wide enough. I have an 06 VLX and the beam I believe measures 8'2. With the wake board racks on each side of the tower and boards in them, will it make the boat wider than 12'. My boat is in San Angelo and I am in Midland, so I can't measure it. Another question, how tall should the roof be? The floor of the dock will be about 16" off of the water. Right now I am planning on the roof being about 7'6 - 8' off of the floor of the dock. I know this will give plenty of room for the boat with the tower up to fit under while its in the water, but if I add a boat lift will it have enough room to be lifted out of the water with the tower up?

Does anyone have a dock with a coverd lift and a VLX that could give me any suggestions or anyone who has had a dock built have anything else I need to think about?

Its a pretty big investment and I want it to work out right.

Thanks in a advance for any suggestions.

Scott

Hey Scott, how's it going?

I've got a covered dock on a constant level lake with my 23WSLSV. My dock builder usually does a 10' wide slip. I increased it to 11' and it works fine. Sometimes we need to watch the cables and make sure they clear if we are more to one side than the other but we always walk the boat onto the cradle anyway. IMO the 12' will be too wide. The reason I say that is that the dock starts getting too far away from the boat and it's hard for some to get in the boat. Makes it harder to hand things off from the dock to a person in the boat too.

My builder usually does a 8' tall ceiling, I changed mine to 10' for the tower clearance. I'm glad I did now not so much for the clearance but so that I can raise the boat up far enough to clean it (wipe it down) after we go out. If it just clears the water you will have to lay on the dock to be able to clean to lower sides of the boat. It also came in handy when I had to work under the boat to change the prop a couple of times. I can raise it far enough out of the water to get under the boat.

Make sure to put it on a cradle and not a sling. With these open bow/windshield boats the sling will cause the boat to roll into itself and soon the windshield will not close or fit together. I had mine built right off my trailer. It looks like the trailer without the wheels and tongue. The cradle will need more area under the boat to clear the water. You don't want to leave it in the water all the time.

The pipe frame was built off of 24' pipe driven into the ground almost to the water line then more pipe welded to extend the height of the pipe to the level needed to build the roof frame.

I've got several friends that are dock builders and can show you many docks here if you ever come this way.

Ronnie

[edwin]

12' of width is plenty...any wider and it could make it challenging to board the boat once you get a lift in place...that's a big step from the dock to the boat.

[Chia]

I am having a dock built on lake Nasworthy in San Angelo, Texas. Nasworthy is a constant level lake, so the dock will be fixed dock. It will have a 12' x 24' dock with an upper deck and then a 12' x 24' covered boat slip that will be built to be able to add a lift later on.

My main concern is the boat slip. Is 12' going to be wide enough. I have an 06 VLX and the beam I believe measures 8'2. With the wake board racks on each side of the tower and boards in them, will it make the boat wider than 12'. My boat is in San Angelo and I am in Midland, so I can't measure it. Another question, how tall should the roof be? The floor of the dock will be about 16" off of the water. Right now I am planning on the roof being about 7'6 - 8' off of the floor of the dock. I know this will give plenty of room for the boat with the tower up to fit under while its in the water, but if I add a boat lift will it have enough room to be lifted out of the water with the tower up?

Does anyone have a dock with a coverd lift and a VLX that could give me any suggestions or anyone who has had a dock built have anything else I need to think about?

Its a pretty big investment and I want it to work out right.

Thanks in a advance for any suggestions.

Scott

12 feet sound plenty wide to me, maybe even too much, that is 2 feet of water to get to the boat if it is centered in th slip. the racks don't have any bearing at gunwale level,, just make sure the posts supporting the roof are wider than 12 feet. I like Gordo's suggestions.

[Big Dubya]

I was on a boat a week ago that was in a covered slip on Wildwood (on a lift)

the dock opening was pretty wide, but the lift cradle had running boards along both sides that moved up with the lift.

they were carpeted and acted as boat-guides, and boarding platforms. it made a nice easy step from inside the boat, to the running board, then onto the dock.

[scott51580]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I knew I could count on you guys.

Ronnie,

Everything is going great here. I hope all is well for you too.

When you come in off of the boat for a short amount of time (for lunch or something), do you pull your boat into the cradle and how hard is it? With your boards in the racks and everything. Do you have any trouble with the boards catching the cables on you lift?

[Ronnie]

When we come in anytime except to put the boat up we tie up at the side or front of the dock instead of going into the slip.

The boards will rub on the edge with the cable if you are coming in off center, one of the passengers will watch and if they need to they can push the cable off the board easily.

I don't drive the boat onto the cradle normally. I might get it started in but most all of the time I walk it in from there. We even do that on a different slip from ours like at one of the local restaurants. Too much can go wrong too fast to try to drive it in IMO.

[Ronnie]

BTW...I think if your slip was 14' wide it would still rub the cables if you came in off center. The rear cable is the only on that causes any trouble and the cradle has not started centering the boat yet at that point unless the cradle is too high.

[WakeAndSno]

You should look at a Hydrohoist instead of a cable lift...

I had one when I lived on the lake in ATL and it was excellent. They had a great guarantee and much fewer moving parts to go wrong...

JZ

[Ronnie]

I wonder what the difference in cost in the Hydrolift and the Cable lift are.

Here is a picture of the clearance I have with the 11' slip. You can see it will clear if all is centered while coming into the slip.

The front cable is not a problem since it is in front of the tower racks. Only the rear as you are pulling into the slip.

[scott51580]

I wonder what the difference in cost in the Hydrolift and the Cable lift are.

Here is a picture of the clearance I have with the 11' slip. You can see it will clear if all is centered while coming into the slip.

The front cable is not a problem since it is in front of the tower racks. Only the rear as you are pulling into the slip.

Just for reference I checked on the cost of the Hydrolift verses a normal lift. The cost of a regular cable lift from the guy doing my dock was $4,600.00 and the cost of the hydrolift installed was $6,300.00. Both of these lifts would lift up to 6,600 lbs.

Thanks again for everyones input.

[awilco]

Hi, here is my 2cents worth.

Use a cable lift, they are great.

Keep your slip width to 10', people will have a hard time getting into your boat if it is wider unless they have super long legs. 10' is plenty wide to drive into.

I am just finishing up my 3rd dock I have owned. I have used hydro, davit and cable lifts. The cable lifts are by far the best, easiest to maintain and adjust. I installed my lift by myself in 5 hours. Most of that time was spent hoisting the overhead I-beams up ontop of the joists and installing the bunks.

My lift is made my East Coast, overhead beam 4000 lb and I paid $1200 for it.

Have fun!

Andy

Edited December 11, 2006 by awilco

[smeagol]

I have an '05 VLX and I was going through this process last year on a floating dock. On a floating dock, the poles that hold the roof up are installed at the water's edge around the slip, so the poles can get in the way of the wakeboard racks. I went with a 12' wide slip to give my loaded racks enough clearance. In retrospect, I wish that I had gone with an 11' wide slip because the current gunwale - dock gap is too large, and 11' would still give me enough clearance. If you don't have any issues with wakeboard rack clearance, I would recommend sticking with a 10' slip because the larger the slip, the more likely you will get turned crooked as you bring it in. I ended up adding guide poles to my lift since the dock did little to help me line it up.

We did a hydrolic lift very similar to the Hydrohoist mentioned above. I believe it was a 5500# lift and we paid around $4700 installed.

[wakeup]

I've had a 10' wide cable lift dock for over 10 years. It has had everything from 21' I/O's to a 23 LSV in it, and now my Vride. Fits fine, never a problem. I put a pipe insulator on each cable just in case I should catch a bad wind or wake on the way in, and the inside is lined with crimped fire hose should I get a little crooked.

I have many kids and older family members over all the time, and the step over is fine.

If you ever plan to use or add a pontoon for parties and such, I would go a little larger just for the sake of having more clearance since those are the same width from front to back so entrance tolerance is tighter than a regular boat. My other slip is slightly over 10.5' for that reason.

Doozie Boat Lift Co. is great in my area. http://www.itsadoozie.com/