How to move a boat?

Round chine, foot or 2 of rocker.

 

Also interested in greased planks, but dont want to get grease on my boat, which may leave residue which would interfere with an epoxy barrier coat yet to be applied.

 

The idea would be to support the boat on a wooden beam, which in turn is supported on another beam. Between the two beams a layer of grease so that the upper beam, fixed to the boat, slides on the bottom beam, fixed to floor. But I do not see it easy to carry out.

 

[I


]f you use pipes let the pipes roll on 2 x 4s to bridge the caps in the floor..

 

Build four or six mini-cradles and use those to slide over greased planks.

 

Snowbirder,

photos would be good, things become more familiar then & details can be sean that weren't apparent before. Whether you slide on steel or timber is not important but having the plank/steel well supported from bending/distorting is. If you do sully your hull with a bit of grease, it can wash off, the interface of the hull to plank must be through a cradle that supports the hull well- no way I'd just slide a hull sideways directly on a plank unless really heavily built but light at the same time

All the best from Jeff.

Jeff.

 

A problem difficult to solve, is how fixedly attaching the boat to the cradle. The problem is solved for many years and the launch of most of boats are done this way, but in this case, I doubt that may apply.
In efect without some pictures, we all are mulling more than they should.
My advice, again, is to put several chambers from truck tires below hulls and inflate.

 

I've made the mistake of trying to move big and heavy stuff on rollers and greased "ways" of some sort and if you want control and/or a "runaway" issue, these are the methods to use. When moving anything heavy you need control - how to positively stop the move, how to initiate the move, how to control direction, without the possibility it'll move in a direction you'd prefer it didn't, etc.

In situations as you describe, the safest method is to lift, wiggle and drop for a reset, just to lift wiggle and drop again. It's tedious, but it can be precise enough so you do hurt anything. What this means is jack it up, lever, teeter totter over center on a set of supports (or something), then set it down and move the lifting gear. A gantry to hoist her, so she can be placed on wheeled pads under supports or to affix wheels to a cradle. If you don't have enough height for a gantry, you'll have to jack her up. The ideal setup will will be wheels on a support cradle. If the floor is rough, laying down plywood works, though using big wheels also works and is often better as the roughness of the floor will somewhat limit a runaway situation.

 

rail concept

Here's some rails we used a couple of weeks ago to shift a windlass a couple of feet to tune up the bearings a little. Just for concept, we used 2 of them around 125 x 100 x 6, the windlass wouldn't have topped 2 T but went pretty easy with some tallow on the rails, full control when you haul on the rail itself & set & support them nice.

Jeff

 

It's moved!

Sorry I was a little unresponsive. I tried the cheapest, easiest, low tech method.

Cut the wheels off my dollies and put dowels and scrap plywood under them. Using about half my strength, i was able to move a 50' catamaran with ease.




Note the 2x4s epoxied to the plank. Those 2x4s had wheels attached and bent and gave out. Also, the wheels crumbled. Harbor Freight wheels. smh

I'd recommend low tech to anyone!

 

Congratulations. Very simple and very cheap. Nothing like thinking.