Lifting Laser onto a dock

wjejr

Active Member
Hi everyone,

This year my club will be putting in new floating docks for the express purpose of holding small sailboats: Lasers, Sunfish, etc. Boats will be rigged, launched and hauled from the dock directly. On that topic I have a couple of questions:

Question #1 - What is the best way to get the boat out of the water without damage to boat and more importantly people? We will have a dock attendant to help the members, but I don't like the idea of the attendant bending over the dock to grab the bow and then lifting the boat. It would seem to me that you could hurt your back by doing this all day.

My original thought was that it would be better to pass a line through the bow fitting and lift it that way until it was at a comfortable height and then grabbing it under the gunwales. Thinking about it some more, I started worrying about whether lifting the boat from the bow fitting was such a good idea. While I am sure it is strong pulling on it horizontally, I wasn't so sure it would hold up lifting it vertically on a regular or even daily basis. Does anyone have experience with this, lifting the bow out with the bow fitting, REPEATEDLY with Lasers? Is it strong enough? Will it be more of concern in older boats?

Question #2 - What is the best way to slide the boat over the edge corner of the dock without doing damage to the boat? Padding and/or some sort of roller comes to mind. Any thoughts?

Many thanks for your help.
 
A dock intended for "beaching" these small sailboats should be designed with a ramp edge that comes down to/into the water. Carpet the ramp. That would eliminate the lifting. You'd just slide it on.

If you have to lift them... I'd put in a small "gantry" rig. A sturdy upright pole and a swing arm... rope and pulleys. For a sunfish a 2:1 (rope tied to top, pully hooks to boat, back up to pulley, over and down to the person pulling the line) would haul it right up.
For a Laser I'd expect you'd desire 4:1 or 6:1

You can protect the boat and dock edge with pool noodle cut to pop onto the dock edge. (if an appropriate edge is there... medium pool noodle slides over a 2X4 edge nicely) Cheap, easy to store and easy to replace.

Not sure about the bow fitting... might want to look into adding lifting cleats with appropriate backing blocks.
 
A dock intended for "beaching" these small sailboats should be designed with a ramp edge that comes down to/into the water. Carpet the ramp. That would eliminate the lifting. You'd just slide it on.

If you have to lift them... I'd put in a small "gantry" rig. A sturdy upright pole and a swing arm... rope and pulleys. For a sunfish a 2:1 (rope tied to top, pully hooks to boat, back up to pulley, over and down to the person pulling the line) would haul it right up.
For a Laser I'd expect you'd desire 4:1 or 6:1

You can protect the boat and dock edge with pool noodle cut to pop onto the dock edge. (if an appropriate edge is there... medium pool noodle slides over a 2X4 edge nicely) Cheap, easy to store and easy to replace.

Not sure about the bow fitting... might want to look into adding lifting cleats with appropriate backing blocks.
Thanks.

The floats are already built, we are repurposing them, and given the logistics of maintenance and storage, changing the shape of the floats is really not a viable option. Also the current footprint of the floats has already been approved by the town waterways commission and various other environmental and regulatory boards. If we change the floats we would need to go through the whole permitting process again. That is a multi month project and very expensive.

I have thought about the pool noodle as a corner protector, but wasn't quite sure how to attach them. What do you suggest? I think if they were attached with nails or screws the noodle would quickly pull free due to the friction of pulling the boat over it.
 
Drill a hole and Zip tie about every 6 inches

Or velcro straps if you want them removable

Or glue them on with expanding poly glue (gorilla glue)

Or if the edge is under 2 inches thick and oriented correctly the boat will pull them on when pulling the boat up, which is when it matters.

you can also wrap the noodle in carpet and staple that to a wood dock for a nice thick bumper

Be creative...
 
You should definitely cover the noodle with carpet, or just use a couple layers of carpet alone.
The noodle by itself will get eaten alive in short order...
 

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