Prop hitting lift bunks

[jondavis08]

Third times a charm... busted my prop up again hitting my lift bunks and looking for some advice. I have cantilever hydraulic lift with carpeted load guides on the side. The guides are set to the widest spot on the boat(rub rail). When the boat is lowered there’s a little play from left to right, if the boat ends just a little bit past the perfect spot forward there’s enough play for the prop to hit the bunks under the boat. I’m pretty cautious trying to avoid but it’s not always that easy. I’ve been thinking about adding from guides to the from or maybe a bow stop. Bow stop concerns me about scratches. Any thoughts?


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[charlesml3]

Photos would really help, but it sounds to me like your bunks are too close together. They should be 32 inches inside-to-inside.

-Charles

[Tom_H]

First question - are you hitting your bunks or the cross-bar of the cradle (sounds like the cross-bar from your description). If your tagging the actual bunks, then I'd agree with Charles that your bunks are too close.

If you're tagging the cradle, you either need to mark out the carpeted guides to line-up with something specific on the boat to prevent going too far it, or would recommend you fab up a bow stop of some sort. Canti's can be a little tricky hitting the right spot. If you did a bow stop similar to what's on the old ramlin trailers (pair of boards in a V that the rub rail only contacts), then you shouldn't have any gel coat scratching issues. Only putting the lift down enough to get on/off helps as well, as you'll usually stop up on the bunks before getting too far.

[jondavis08]

Pictures below. This is a Basta lift and as far as I can tell I cannot widen the bunks. There also isn't a cross bar, it appears it's the bunks. I don't really like the carpeted bunks as they seem to scratch the side of boat at times. I'm thinking of adding these to keep me centered ( https://bastaboatlifts.com/product/c...g-guide-steel/) I could also add a bow stop( https://bastaboatlifts.com/product/bow-guide/ ). I'm not sure I'd need a bow stop if I kept the boat centered.

[jondavis08]

And yes I often just put the lift down enough and it helps. However 9 times out of the 10 I’m filling the ballast on the lift so I need to go all the way down


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[Tom_H]

Hmmm. With the boat guides staying on the frame, and not moving with the bunks - makes it a bit harder to line up with a marked spot on them, but it could still be done (but would be dependent on being unballasted, otherwise the bunks will meet the hull in a different place when they come up). With the way that lift is framed up, fabricating an alternative bow stop would take some doing, and the one they have is probably your best bet if you need one. Beyond that, I would just say make a habit of coming in very slow and killing your engine before you have a chance to tag a bunk with a spinning prop.

Do you have the key fobs for yours? You could always run the cradle up a bit before you get on if you ballasted on the lift and its too low.

[swatguy]

Couple different ways to approach this and get a viable solution. You can add a bow stop to your cradle that will prevent you from coming too far forward should that be the issue.

Those carpet guide ons I am assuming are wide so they don’t rub the decals off your boat when you pull in. Solution to that ........What I did to conquer that was remove the carpeted horizontal piece from the uprights and simply slipped a 3inch round pvc ( what I think was the size off the top of my head ) cut to my desired length around the upright with a cap on it. . This way it only touches my rub rail at the contact points and you can get the poles a little tighter to prevent slop left to right. Once my neighbor saw what I did ,,, he did the same to his cantilever for his 230 and hasn’t looked back

Last solition is to shorten the rear part Jon of the bunk a bit , probably not the most popular , but it can be done.

[Infinity]

This looks like a great setup^^.
Also, check out these bunk covers....carpet will always scratch hull over time cause crap gets caught on them, I know a couple people that have replaced their carpet with the stuff in this link below and I plan to replace carpet on my trailer this winter with them. Not only will not scratch, but also wont retain water, which can cause gel coat blistering. Not the cheapest option, but the best one that I have seen.

http://gatorbak.com/gb350-bunk-cover/

[martymizah]

Is it happening while you are driving the boat onto the lift or are you noticing it after the fact?

Have you gotten into the water with some goggles and just manually push the boat on? I have a hydrualic cantilever lift and I cut its close to the cross support circled below as the boat is lifting:

I doubt you are hitting your prop on the bunks. In order to hit your prop on those bunks, you'd have to be mis-aligned quite a bit i would think.

You could always shorten up the bunks as well - the really don't have to have them all the way off the back end of the boat

[jondavis08]

From everything I could tell the issue was hitting the bunks. The spot you circled isn't reachable by the prop. I ended up getting a remote control unit and it's working well. I just lower the boat until it's a spot a can reverse out. I then hit then raise the bunks up with a few bumps from the remote when I'm free. Now we I pull in the bunks are high enough to stop my forward motion and it also centers the boat. I then can slowly pull forward by giving it gas until I'm the sweet spot. So far it's been working!

[Dave Parkinson UK]

Hi Guy's, I have a question for you all, I am building a cantilever lift and want to make it 12v electric, it's in the ora of the shoremaster 40108, I have to use a winch similar to the rv type but want to keep it as small as poss, what weight winch do you think I should use, not able to buy this equipment over here just now, (the pound is very weak) so decided to do my own,
Cheers
Dave

[shag]

What is the weight rating of your lift? Also, I would be cautious of filling the ballast while on the lift, that can over load the lift quite easily, and at a point where it is at the highest stress. I have had hydraulic lifts for years and have seen a few others who have broken their frames from lowering or lifting with ballast weight. (the actual aluminum tubing failed).

[Dave Parkinson UK]

The lift I am constructing is made mostly from 3" x 3" X 1/4 6063 aluminium which is a heavyier gage than shoremaster use, but recon the lift is good for at least 4000 lbs,
we do not ballast our boat (SN1997 196) the lift is both bolted and welded, the only bolted parts art the two lower cross beams, ant this is done for transportation. We have used 3/8" triangular plates for the joints. We do have a facility to get it properly weight tested but as its for our own boat and not going into production I probably wont bother.
Thanks
Dave