CHEAPEST WAY TO BUILD LOADING RAMPS

[hghvolt]

You might check with the local fire station to see if they have some 1-1/2" hose they are retiring from service. I've use some old fire hose to lift a few boats in the past.

 

[dragoneggs]

What you say is probably true, but it is sort of fun to banter back and forth regarding all sorts of possible solutions.

I hang out with and have quite a few family members that are engineers. Mechanical, chemical, electrical, and so forth. You ought to see us tackling the simplest problem at times. We get all sorts of great ideas, and no doubt as we sit and discuss and plan, we may well have been able to have tackled said project in the worst way possible and have been done before the best way possible plan was scrutinized and finalized. Generally someone will interrupt the plan with "ah guys, let's just hold that board up there, stick a level on it and hit it with the nail gun, we are building a closet, not a rocket". What, no lasers, not fancy trig, no ropes or pulleys?

So as I chuckle at this project, I chuckle at myself.

I'm so with you! I love analyzing and often there is overkill in the design. But a lot of fun. Being an engineer has its pro's and con's. Just ask my wife. I drive her crazy sometimes on the mechanics of things. :dance1: :ashamed:

 

[Aussiebushman]

Dave and Dragoneggs are right on - a lot of the pleasure in being in the bush with unusual situations is kicking around possible options with like-minded "engineering" types. As I said a while back, ther are no silly suggestions - even the craziest may lead to a new idea that works best

Re "Buy two "come-along" wire rope ratchet winches; attach with your straps or whatever you have to get to the rear winches; attach the other end to your trucks, tractor, tree, or whatever, and then just patiently ratchet it up onto the bank. I don't think you even need ramps"

I already have two chain blocks more than capable of handling the pull BUT if you look at my diagram you will see that getting the boat onto the bank and letting it drain is not the main issue - it is raising the bows enough to load onto the boat trailer because only then can I get under it to find and repair the holes that caused the problem in the first place. The rear trailer rollers are about 400 mm off the ground

It is just possible that when the stern is lifted and the boat is floating at the right level, it MIGHT float off the bank enough to drive the trailer under - per the normal loading method. However. there is a strong possibility of the bows sinking with the weight of all the water that will not be drained at that stage - not worth the risk, hence the ramps

 

[square1]

We have not yet attained a Rube Goldberg Award nomination!

 

[rfc143]

Fry your fish one at a time:
If getting it out of the water "is not the biggest problem ", then get it out of the water! Use your chain falls or whatever. Just get it out of the water!

Then at least you have a much simpler problem of lifting/leveling the vessel on the bank, without water in the hulls. At that point you original idea of greased plywood to get the bow 400 mm higher will probably work.
You're making this too hard.

 

[jaxs]

Remind's me of two engineers arguing over best way of bringing a new mule inside the barn. When they tried leading him in,the mule's ears touched top of door,spooking the mule and he ran backwards. One wanted to raise the barn with jacks and set it on blocks. The other wanted to notch out above door making it taller. Third engineer passing by overheard them and came over to recommend digging a trench through door. Engineer #1 looked at engineer #2 and commented "he doesn't understand that his ears are too long,not his legs".

 

[rScotty]

Remind's me of two engineers arguing over best way of bringing a new mule inside the barn. When they tried leading him in,the mule's ears touched top of door,spooking the mule and he ran backwards. One wanted to raise the barn with jacks and set it on blocks. The other wanted to notch out above door making it taller. Third engineer passing by overheard them and came over to recommend digging a trench through door. Engineer #1 looked at engineer #2 and commented "he doesn't understand that his ears are too long,not his legs".

What a great story! Thank you for a dose of good ol' Southern Humor...., I grew up moving around between rural Arkansas & Bellmead, Texas in an area of the Southern US where those stories are cherished. It's an art form.
rScotty

 

[Carlaisle]

Do you have any long lumber or steel handy? An A frame could be constructed fairly easily from which your chain hoist/winch/etc. could be attached. You would then have two options. 1) lift the back of the boat and let the water drain out via gravity or 2) set that A frame up at an angle away from the bank so that when you pulled on the boat it would be lifted up and onto the bank/trailer simultaneously.

 

[Aussiebushman]

Do you have any long lumber or steel handy? An A frame could be constructed fairly easily from which your chain hoist/winch/etc. could be attached.

Good suggestion but the steepness of the dam wall and the bottom being soft mud make this less practical and much more work than inner tubes under the aft deck per my sketch.

With the help of so many of you with various suggestions, the procedure is pretty well figured out. This includes sides screwed to the ramps to stop the keels sliding sideways and the use of a strap or plank right across the stern to spread the load Only being held up now by various neighbors being incapacitated meaning no one around to help and I'm a bit nervous about trying to do this job on my own.

After 43 years on the property I have learned the hard way that Murphy was indeed an optimist - if anything can go wrong, it will!

 

[square1]

You get that thing out of the water yet, or are you going to make a (non)floating museum out of it, i.e. the RMS Queen Mary?

 

[Aussiebushman]

IT IS OUT OF THE DAM!

After several false starts, got the boat onto the bank yesterday where the hulls are draining. As usual, it was silly things that caused the delay, mainly not having any helpers around, then finding that the tractor tubes did not have valves and I could not find my valve tool so that meant another delay. Then the filler plug on the compressor sh*t itself blowing oil everywhere. Otherwise a good and reliable unit I have had for many years, the filler plug was a cheap (Chinese) plastic one forced into a tapered hole - not threaded as it should have been.

The water lever in the dam has dropped considerably as the spring temperature increased so the angle of the hulls was much steeper than previously with the aft deck well over a metre below the water surface. It proved impossible to get the inner tubes under the deck from the stern due to the inherent flotation of the tubes even without air in them. The solution was to crawl under the boat from the front and push the tubes - one on top of the other - under the aft end of the deck with the valves positioned where they could be reached from the front. That took over a hour and it was bl&#dy cold, even with a wet suit

The generator and compressor were in a box trailer on the bank with a long airline. My helper started the generator with me right under the boat attaching the hose to the tube valves - literally 5 minutes and the boat broke free of the mud.

I had already placed a sturdy recovery strap right around the aft ends of the hulls, with heavy ropes and a chain block shackled to the tow vehicle This eliminated the need to have two tow vehicles because the ramps I had made were exactly the right answer. By careful positioning and now with the hulls out of the clinging mud, the boat slowly but surely climbed up the ramps onto the firm ground where it now sits while the water drains out.

Only when the water has drained in a few days time will it be possible to winch the boat fully onto the trailer rollers but the worst is over. If you look at the mud line on the boat sides, you can see just how low the boat was in the water.

City folk wonder what you do all day when you live in the bush!

 

[jaxs]

That went far better than it is supposed to. Something must break or get jambed up before the job can be considered complete.:talktothehand: Good to hear it's high and dry.

 

[Wagtail]

HUZZAH!

 

[TomSeller]

Congratulations !! Good job !!

 

[square1]

Congrats! Now you're all set for the next time

 

[BleedingOrange]

Great job. Neat looking boat. Was that home built or is it a manufactured one ?
I,ve never seen one shaped like that before. When you get a chance, it would be nice to hear more about the boat and its history.

 

[JB13502]

I've been following this post since the beginning. I was also worried (along with the masses) when we didn't hear anything for a while. Glad to hear you got her out!:applause:

 

[Xfaxman]

:thumbsup:

 

[dragoneggs]

I've been following this post since the beginning. I was also worried (along with the masses) when we didn't hear anything for a while. Glad to hear you got her out!:applause:

Me too... I think we even had an APB put out to check on him at one point. Great to hear of the success!

 

[Aussiebushman]

Thanks Guys!

This has been a constant embarrassment for me as it should never have happened in the first place. I really appreciate the ongoing interest and supportive suggestions from all of you- and this is not even a boating forum.

Re history, I had built a 6 metre trimaran that was moved from a mooring in a strong wind area to a different location on the NSW south coast, It survived just two weeks before being stripped of everything worth stealing then TORCHED - the centre hull was completely burned and sunk - no insurance of course. With some help from a local guy, I recovered the two outer hulls (they had not been burnt) alloy cross beams, winches, pulpit and and dragged them back to the farm.

Mostly to overcome the angst caused by the loss, I decided to use the twin hulls, cross beams and the existing trailer as the basis for a simple little inshore sailing catamaran with minimal accommodation - just a bunk, galley, porta-potti and a decent sized cockpit with lockers for fuel and fresh water. The design just grew from those simple requirements. Yes it is an ugly little bast#rd but no worse than many other small craft and it is actually very practical.

I sourced heaps of second hand gear at very low prices, also fitted new solar panels, a deep-cycle battery, outboard motor, replacement mast and sails etc (the sails in the picture are on a different boat) and was pretty well ready to sailing when this last fiasco occurred.

Now I have the job of finding and fixing the holes, cleaning everything, stepping the (swing-down) mast by which time it will be winter again - welcome to boat-building!