Boat sunk at the dock - again..

[rogerwa]

I got to my cabin this weekend and found my 16' fishing boat sitting on the bottom. This happened at the same time last year. This year I fashioned a bilge pump with a float switch and thought I had it licked. Well we pulled her out on Saturday and found the wire must have overheated and disconnected as I found evidence of burn at the end of the disconnected wire.

Next year I will build a lift to ratchet it up the shore instead.

Now last year I felt pretty luck because I was able to clear out the cylinders and carb bowl on the trusty 1976 Merc 9.8 outboard and she popped right off. I ran it for a while and put it up in the shed over the winter and it ran perfect all summer long.

I figured I had used my lucky ticket and would have more problems this year. Well sure enough, I cleared it out and it popped right off again and ran great.

I found out that it had been sitting in the water all week long.

I'm just simply amazed that this thing is still running.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

A buddy of mine had a cabin where he kept a boat year round, he had similar problems keeping the boat in shape since he wasn't there all that often. He built a runway and trolley the allowed him to winch the boat ashore and launch it by himself. He used 4" galvanized pipes for the railway and he built a trolley with two bunks and a bow stop to hold the boat on, he would drive the boat onto the dolly much like loading it on a trailer, then go ashore and winch the dolly and boat out of the water. He used an iron frame for the dolly and iron casters. It looked like it may have been a chassis from either a roller coaster or maybe a mining cart of some sort.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

there is a place here, where the owner, used 2 pieces of railroad track, for runners, took a trailer, with just wheels, no tires. he has a 1940's Chris Craft runabout on it. it has an electric winch that launches and retrieves the trailer on the rails. you could do something like that. this set up has been at this house for over 40 years that i can remember.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

Some folks in my area they just use a couple of 2x10's with some separater boards and few roller and a winch. They attach it to a post and then just crank it up. I'll probably do something like that. The boat is just an aluminum fishing boat and is pretty light (when not full of water). I could probably even just use carpet instead of rollers.

 

[marquette]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

earlier this spring either Menards or Fleet farm had all the rollers, cradles,parts , ect to build what you are looking for. you built it whatever length you needed and bought whatever rollers and ect needed for your length. it was in the same area where they sell all the parts to build docks. i don't remember how expensive the parts were but i am sure they will have them again next spring. there is a guy always selling them every year at the sports show in Mpls also.

 

[marine4003]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

I got to my cabin this weekend and found my 16' fishing boat sitting on the bottom. This happened at the same time last year. This year I fashioned a bilge pump with a float switch and thought I had it licked. Well we pulled her out on Saturday and found the wire must have overheated and disconnected as I found evidence of burn at the end of the disconnected wire.

Next year I will build a lift to ratchet it up the shore instead.

Now last year I felt pretty luck because I was able to clear out the cylinders and carb bowl on the trusty 1976 Merc 9.8 outboard and she popped right off. I ran it for a while and put it up in the shed over the winter and it ran perfect all summer long.

I figured I had used my lucky ticket and would have more problems this year. Well sure enough, I cleared it out and it popped right off again and ran great.

I found out that it had been sitting in the water all week long.

I'm just simply amazed that this thing is still running.

Wouldn't it of been easier to just buy a cover...even a tarp & bungie cords , why rely on a system that has failed once already.

 

[mthieme]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

You might consider popping the motor off and sticking it inside when you leave.

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

Shouldn't that boat float when full of water? Is the foam floatation bad? A swamped 16 footer should be able to float the weight of a 9.9 HP motor.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

Shouldn't that boat float when full of water? Is the foam floatation bad? A swamped 16 footer should be able to float the weight of a 9.9 HP motor.

Except it has 3 batteries in it to drive the bilge pump.

Sorry, had to take the shot.
jm

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

I would have thought the same but I had two lately that I had to recover which had sunk, one a 14' aluminum jon boat which sunk at a friends dock, with a 2.5HP motor on it, and a 12' aluminum V hull which sunk at a dock in PA.
The 12' boat was the toughest since it sunk in deeper water. I had a tough time getting it to move. I ended up tying inner tubes to the boat un inflated, then I ran an air hose down and pumped up the tubes thus bringing it to the surface. I was concerned about damaging the hull so I only brought it up part way and towed it to shore where I could slide it out of the water slowly removing the water from inside as it surfaced. It had no motor attached, only a pair of oars attached to the oar locks. That boat has very little area to put foam, the seat is only a wood plank and the only covered area is about a foot of the bow. The rest is wide open revealing all the ribs. That boat is older, most likely from the mid to late 60's.

The jon boat, most likely from the late 70's or so, had seat foam under three seats but it also did little to nothing to float it. The jon boat sunk half in the water, half out getting itself well stuck in the mud. It was so adhered the bottom mud that even after I bailed out the water it still wouldn't float. Between the foam being saturated, and the mud that was stuck to the hull, it just sat there on the bottom with the transom about even with the water at the rear. The worst part about that mess was all of the mosquitoes which had made themselves at home in the boat.
I had to drag the boat out after a lot of digging and rocking, dig out the soaked foam and later took it to a car wash to get out all the mud and mosquitoes. The under seat foam was soggy and fell apart in my hand. I cut several blocks of poly styrene to replace it and glued them in place. The motor was fine, the power head never went under. Both were a case of being left out for too long and rainwater just accumulated finally sinking them. Both were left sit all year unattended, so neither surprised me in that they sunk. The lack of viable flotation did however.

 

[cranksbait]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

I remember when I was a kid, my grandpa's boat (12 ft with a 4 horse) got ripped off shore by a storm and sank. We started to pull it into closer water. Didn't move it an inch. Then I got the idea to remove the motor and flip the boat upside down to float it . It worked great. Waited a day and fired up the motor no problem.

I would suggest pulling the boat as well. My FIL has his boat pulled up on shore with a hand winch over a log. Pull the plug, your good to go.

Would not trust a bilge. Could jam with something and burn out. Already experienced that, not enjoyable when you are trying to empty a leaky boat in the middle of the lake.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

This won't happen again. it is a major pain. Besides I'm not sure how many dunkings that motor will take.

This is a 16' pre-1965 aluminum fishing boat. Just hull and three bench seats.

I used to take the motor off but that is a pain as well.

I thought about a cover, but trying to get that on in the water with enough pitchin the cover to shed the water would be frustrating. With my ski boat I always had water collecting in the cover.

I will spend the winter months thinking about a design that will be both cheap and effective to cranking it up on shore. I am on a river and the shoreline is not gradual. The edge of land is probably 4' higher than the water, so there will be quite a bit of angle to the ramp or lift. It also has to have a positive WAF (wife acceptance factor).

I'll probably build a double as we will be getting an ATV at some point and will need to crank it up as well.

When I pull it out for the winter I just connect my truck or an ATV and slowly pull up the shore, but I can't see doing that every weekend.

 

[Docknocker]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

That age aluminum is probably "weeping" along several seams, so I doubt a cover would do much - wouldn't hurt though. Any neighbors selling a small hand crank boat lift, or isn't your shoreline conducive to one? How 'bout a couple of truck inner tubes under the seats B4 you leave on Sunday nights?

 

[waterone1@aol.com]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

A boat lift is the way to go. It doesn't have to be any kind of fancy, electric powered rig. When my parents had their place on Lake George ( Indiana...not NY) almost everyone there had a boat lift. Most of these were simple aluminum pipe structures(and bunks) with aircraft cable and a large hand winch.

 

[Docknocker]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

Yup - they're all around Lake George ( New York, not Indiana) too!

 

[reelfishin]

Re: Boat sunk at the dock - again..

I saw one homemade set up that worked pretty well up in PA. There was four poles, about the size of telephone poles, the two farthest from the dock each had a cable anchored to the top. There was a H frame with two rubber padded bunks about 12' long or so. The bunks were tied together with two large round pipes which had a roller on each end. The cables then were ran over the rollers into the pipes and out the other side. The closer ends of the cable attached to a very large manual winch which had it's spool divided in two. Each cable would wind on it's own side of the winch pulley. The handle was about 2' long.
The H frame with the bunks was weighted so as to sink completely clear of the boat when lowered. The boat would drive inbetween the poles, then get winched up out of the water. It was all homemade and it took some custom engineered parts but it worked great. They were lifting a 19' or so long ski boat with it. There was no bow stop and when the frame was down, the boat could leave in either direction without fear of hitting the lowered frame. The water was pretty deep there too, but since the frame was all but flat, it didn't have to be lowered all that far to clear the boat. Water level didn't affect it since the cables were ran off the tops of the poles and over the second set of poles. The winch sat parallel with the docked boat with one cable entering the winch pulley from the ratchet side of the winch, the other from the opposite side. The winch had no freewheel function and it had a huge automatic brake. There was no way for it to runaway and drop the boat as would be possible with a smaller winch. I'm not sure what brand the winch was, but the pulley was about 12" in diameter. They eventually added a roof over the four poles too. It was on a lake on which nearly everyone had a boat house or winch.
My only concern looking at the system they had made was what if a pulley seized up or broke, there would be no way to lower the boat with the cables bound up, or worse, only one end would lower dumping the boat, of course, the boat wasn't that high out of the water either. It looked to have been in use for years when I saw it, so what ever they used for rollers must have been pretty durable. They looked like huge rubber or urethane spools on the main frame in the water, those above water looked more like over sized steering pulleys made into a bracket. They changed direction of the cable back to the winch.