Wheels up!

[Booms]

I received a phone call from my father-in-law this afternoon telling me that with a constant 25 mph south wind his empty boat lift flipped over the dock. So my bro-in-law and I drove the 45 mintues to his cottage this afternoon to get it all back together. What sucks is we just installed a $800 remote control lift motor. Other than the canopy torn to shreads and the remote control electronics sitting in the water for 8 hours everything seems to be ok. We are hoping the electronics and electric motor will dry out and still work seeing it was unplugged. You gotta love insurance!
Waders were still needed as the water is 50 and the air was 68.

When looking at the picture the boat lift was on the left side of the dock. The wind tipped the lift on top of the dock then pushed it into the water.

[da.bell]

Only 25 MPH??? I would think the wind had to be more than that. But, it was probably a gust that did the damage IMO. Wow, crazy weather this year already.

[chpthril]

Well damn, that's crazy. Hope it all goes back together and dries out and works ok

[ImaPigDog]

Wow! Like da.bell said, my guess was a lot stronger that 25 mph winds caused that. At least nobody is hurt.

[MoneyPity]

Sorry to hear about you misfortune.

I suspect it was a strong micro burst type of wind to flip it like that. I sure hope electronics dry out and are usable.

I would leave them in the sun so that the motor coils will heat up from the sun hopefully allowing it to dry out.

Not being familiar with the control box I might do the same thing but check it often to make sure it does not get too hot and start to melt. I would think that since the are supposed to work in a wet marine environment that they would come back to life after drying.

Is the lift insured? If there was a repair bill will it cover the damage after the darn deductibles?

Sorry about the redundancy but this really sucks for you!

Good Luck.


Good luck.

[dogbert]

No, not really. That lift is probably made of aluminum and it doesn't take much to flip it with a canopy that big. I had that option on my Shoremaster lift and decided to pass for exactly that reason.

[MoneyPity]

No, not really. That lift is probably made of aluminum and it doesn't take much to flip it with a canopy that big. I had that option on my Shoremaster lift and decided to pass for exactly that reason.

Thanks that is good to know because my brother in-law and I are looking to put one in at my fathers place so we don't have to pull boats out of water at the end of a weekend. Right now we pull them out after a weekend and either haul them back to Chicago Suburbs or leave in father driveway but it is rare when we both leave our boats there. If we could get good price on used models we have enough room for two. Shoremaster is the prevalent lift in the area. We could pass on tops and just put on our mooring covers or in my case cockpit and bow covers.

[Booms]

I think that the main problem was from the wheels. The previous owner put trailer axials with air filled wheels on it. The lift probably only weights in @ 400lbs. You put a 24' x 10' canopy on a light weight lift, with bouyant wheels and a 25 mph wind it probably started a rocking and finally flipped.

We have two other lifts at our cottage about 8 houses down the shore. We never had this type of problem before. IMO it is the air filled wheels and the extra height the wheels add to the lift that caused this to happen.