Can anyone suggest a block and tackle system that is reasonably priced?

[rslifkin]

If you do run things forward to allow use of your sail control winches, I wouldn't combine lines. For the sake of draining rain, working on things, etc. I'd want to be able to control the lift height of each end of the dinghy independently.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

If you do run things forward to allow use of your sail control winches, I wouldn't combine lines. For the sake of draining rain, working on things, etc. I'd want to be able to control the lift height of each end of the dinghy independently.

Agreed.

Worth checking it out though. But wait. Actually I can’t do it. I need the dinghy in order to go ti the rigger’s. So I will need it to be up on the davits before I have anything to raise it. I don’t have any winches installed.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Agreed.

Worth checking it out though. But wait. Actually I can’t do it. I need the dinghy in order to go ti the rigger’s. So I will need it to be up on the davits before I have anything to raise it. I don’t have any winches installed.

The easy answer is to go for the bock and tackle. Cam cleats to hold the lines while lifting plus regular cleats to tie them off on for a safety. And you can always bolt a small winch onto the davits later if you decide you want extra leverage.

[Franziska]

Chotu, I had a look on the pix I have on file. This one shows the idea.

So, three thin Dyneema lines going through small low friction rings. Each with a snap shackle to attach the dinghy to.
These three lines get joined and go through one big friction ring and are then tied to the bigger yellow line going to the winch. You reel just the thick line in and up she comes.
The belts get tightened when the dinghy is fully up against the arch.
We use the flat fenders as cushion between dinghy and arch when strapping it in.

The winch is our normal mainsheet winch on the roof.

On the second photo you can see how we keep our hard sailing dinghy from banging into the hull.
Two lines one tightly between the hulls. A snapshackle secures the dinghy bow to this.
A second line goes in a Vee from the stern to the dinghy center where it's snapshackled and than to the other bow.

On the first image the dinghy is lowered for a better sunset view.

Hope that helps. Good luck. [emoji6]
Attachment 267379

[dlymn]

Here is a boom vang of a 420 sailing dinghy. Not hard to scale it up to your needs. You can replace every pulley with a low friction ring. There is a post about this on the web somewhere. This design gives 16:1 leverage and you might not need that.
https://westcoastsailing.net/c420-boom-vang-16-1/

[s/v Jedi]

So I changed my dinghy hoist once again. It’s the best ever now: one single Dyneema line, some LFR’s, some Dyneema loops and soft shackles.

There’s a couple of but’s:

- inside the dinghy I made four Dyneema dogbones connecting to each of the four lifting eyes. By adjusting the eye splices it’s easy to change their length to tune the system. The outboard dogbones are longer than the inboard to get the dinghy level. Both aft dogbones are soft-shackled together and so are the two fwd ones.

- I have a lifting arm attached to my stern arch. This is essential. It comes all the way down and has two Dyneema loops cow-hitched to it and you connect the dinghy soft shackles to these, then get out the dinghy and hoist it.

So the hoisting line is one single Dyneema line. It is spliced to the arch at the end where the outboard motor is. At that same position there is a LFR attached to the lifting arm with a cow-hitched Dyneema loop. This is right at the same spot where the dinghy attaches to the arm. The Dyneema hoisting line runs through the LFR and back the way it came, where another LFR is attached to the arch. It goes through that LFR, then sideways along the arch to the forward end of the dinghy where it makes the same 2:1 attachment to the lifting arm at that end and back up to the arch where again it goes through LFR number 4. From there it goes down to deck level where LFR 5 is, leading straight to the primary winch there.

You just winch in the line until the dinghy is all the way up and you’re done

Edit: I’m dumb it’s built so that the winch pull is first at the outboard motor end. This is how it stays reasonably level fore and aft while hoisting.

[Chotu]

And I don’t want to change mine but I’m going to have to. It sucks.

I’ve built these fantastic cantilever davits. I got the nice block and tackle that Rslifkin suggested. Everything works great!

But my Rigger wants to change everything.

Apparently I’m now going to have a couple of brackets sticking out of the aft beam that the dinghy stays on. Kind of like a power boat would have. And it will be lifted using the sheet winches. The end of the boom will have some kind of thing that slides out of it and allows you to use it as a crane to lift the dinghy up onto the cradle.

Not too excited about it, but it’s the best way to get the Traveler system to work I guess.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And I don’t want to change mine but I’m going to have to. It sucks.

I’ve built these fantastic cantilever davits. I got the nice block and tackle that Rslifkin suggested. Everything works great!

But my Rigger wants to change everything.

Apparently I’m now going to have a couple of brackets sticking out of the aft beam that the dinghy stays on. Kind of like a power boat would have. And it will be lifted using the sheet winches. The end of the boom will have some kind of thing that slides out of it and allows you to use it as a crane to lift the dinghy up onto the cradle.

Not too excited about it, but it’s the best way to get the Traveler system to work I guess.

That is a perfect system. I like the lifting arm from Chris White catamarans better, but the main boom telescoping lifting sheave is great. The best part is putting the dinghy in those shocks/blocks whatever they are called

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by Chotu

And I don’t want to change mine but I’m going to have to. It sucks.

I’ve built these fantastic cantilever davits. I got the nice block and tackle that Rslifkin suggested. Everything works great!

But my Rigger wants to change everything.

Apparently I’m now going to have a couple of brackets sticking out of the aft beam that the dinghy stays on. Kind of like a power boat would have. And it will be lifted using the sheet winches. The end of the boom will have some kind of thing that slides out of it and allows you to use it as a crane to lift the dinghy up onto the cradle.

Not too excited about it, but it’s the best way to get the Traveler system to work I guess.

I think you mentioned that you're going with an A-frame double mainsheet instead of a normal traveler. If so, then it does a great job of stabilizing the boom - which is the only issue with the single line boom end lift. Dinghy chocks are great to hold the dinghy secure, down low, and out of the way.

[chrisr]

we have the lifting crane sliding out of the mainboom. lift with main halyard. dink then parks on the back deck

works really well but it does mean you need to swing the mainboom into position when lifting the dink. as we usually have the mainboom swung right out to the side (to provide maximum clearance for the solar panels), this entails a bit of messing around and so the dink rarely get lifted out of the water

keep meaning to antifoul the dinghy, but that's a 'one day' job

cheers,

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Matt Johnson

I think you mentioned that you're going with an A-frame double mainsheet instead of a normal traveler. If so, then it does a great job of stabilizing the boom - which is the only issue with the single line boom end lift. Dinghy chocks are great to hold the dinghy secure, down low, and out of the way.

Yes. Good memory.

Just picture the gunboat 48. It will be exactly the same, except that instead of davits, there will be chocks under the dinghy.

And the issue that my Rigger sees is that my roof will not support the loads from the main sheet. It’s really smarter to bring those loads all the way down to the aft structural beam.

And even if the roof does support those loads, having the main sheet tugging on the roof creates problems with large windows. Once he said that I was sold. Because the windows are so difficult to manage.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by chrisr

we have the lifting crane sliding out of the mainboom. lift with main halyard. dink then parks on the back deck

works really well but it does mean you need to swing the mainboom into position when lifting the dink. as we usually have the mainboom swung right out to the side (to provide maximum clearance for the solar panels), this entails a bit of messing around and so the dink rarely get lifted out of the water

keep meaning to antifoul the dinghy, but that's a 'one day' job

cheers,

Thanks for posting this. That’s an important thing to consider.

I take mine out of the water every single time I use it. It stays up in the davits unless I am using it. So I definitely need it to be easy enough to use.

I didn’t imagine I would be moving my boom like you do each day for solar. Where are your panels? I have 4 panels. Two on each extreme side of the deck house.

The idea was that two of them would always be in the sun. Hopefully. So there would be 700 W of solar at a minimum running. 1400 W if I can manage to get all of them in the sun.

But I was not going to manage the system at all. That’s some thing I’m trying to avoid on this boat. Having to manage things and deal with things. I’m trying to keep everything “set it and forget it.”

[chrisr]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Thanks for posting this. That’s an important thing to consider.

I take mine out of the water every single time I use it. It stays up in the davits unless I am using it. So I definitely need it to be easy enough to use.

I didn’t imagine I would be moving my boom like you do each day for solar. Where are your panels? I have 4 panels. Two on each extreme side of the deck house.

The idea was that two of them would always be in the sun. Hopefully. So there would be 700 W of solar at a minimum running. 1400 W if I can manage to get all of them in the sun.

But I was not going to manage the system at all. That’s some thing I’m trying to avoid on this boat. Having to manage things and deal with things. I’m trying to keep everything “set it and forget it.”

we have 1.4kw, all on the roof. 3 x large + 2 x smaller panels. you are a bit larger than we are so boom shadow might not be a problem...and frankly it's not that big an issue for us, but i like to do everything i can to maximise solar output.

but we don't move the boom every day...just once, when we anchor. after this it stays swung out of the way. of course if we wanted to lift the dink out every day then we would have to move it.

life is full of trade-offs. in this case we have to balance solar v dinghy bum v ease of living. loser is dinghy

cheers,

[s/v Jedi]

We hoist the dinghy even during the day when not being used for a while… because it’s only minutes to do so and the winch we use is electric.

In the Caribbean you won’t have problems with having much work for hoisting the dinghy because it will be taken from you shortly after arrival if not hoisting it

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

That is a perfect system. I like the lifting arm from Chris White catamarans better, but the main boom telescoping lifting sheave is great. The best part is putting the dinghy in those shocks/blocks whatever they are called

well, it looks like all of the most experienced and most knowledgeable people on the forum think it’s a good idea. And my Rigger is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced people I have met. So I will just have to learn to live with it. Ha ha

I guess it will be better than my expectations.