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jmschmidt · 25-09-2018, 13:31

This is why a marine railroad, with cars that have adjustable side braces, is a superior way to do bottoms on small boats. Good luck trying to find one. Is anyone out there young enough to know what I am talking about? I know that travel lifts and jack-stands are all the rage but they are a piss-poor substitute which costs extra to have yard personnel move the stands. IMHO.

That notwithstanding, what's a sailor to do? Well, it is perfectly simple with my boat, (41' Newport, 8,500lb. lead keel) and most boats I would think, with a sufficient number of jack-stands, chained together and properly spaced to take the load, to take up on each screw a half-turn in unison to the point that the entire boat lifts off the keel blocks. Then just paint away, as many coats as you like.

Yard managers would go nuts I'm sure but if they were real professionals they would offer this service for their customers and charge extra for it. It's a lot cheaper and safer than driving around the yard with the boat on a travel-lift or a crane being chased by an owner with a bucket and a paint brush.

I'm fortunate to have a club-owned yard (not open to the public) where it is DIY and since I have been doing it this way for over twenty-five years nobody even gives it a second thought. But unfortunately DIY yards are soon to be a thing of the past thanks to environmental regs.

atmartin · 25-09-2018, 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

This is why a marine railroad, with cars that have adjustable side braces, is a superior way to do bottoms on small boats. Good luck trying to find one. Is anyone out there young enough to know what I am talking about? I know that travel lifts and jack-stands are all the rage but they are a piss-poor substitute which costs extra to have yard personnel move the stands. IMHO.

I've worked in yards with a railway. Eh :shrug:

Many yards and marinas make their money with storage. Stands take up a lot less space than cribs. If you've got a hydraulic trailer, you can pack boats pretty tight and move them around quickly. Maybe it's just the crews I've worked with, but the travel lift crews were faster in getting the boats out of the water and ready to work on.

Maybe the best scenario is a yard with both, but yards that have a travel lift and a railway seem to abandon the railway. Railways are still be popular in NE, maybe it's a wooden boat thing.

Now that they've got 1000 ton travel lifts, why bother?

sailorboy1 · 25-09-2018, 14:06

well I've always just moved the pads, but the bottom of the keel under the blocks I just assume is a garden

Mike Banks · 25-09-2018, 14:36

How about a keel shoe made from cadmium copper? As long as your hull is not aluminium or steel, it should work just fine. Never need anti-foul or paint underneath.

Even stainless steel shoes work ok on fibreglass hulls--but they do get growth on them.

coopec43 · 25-09-2018, 19:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

That notwithstanding, what's a sailor to do? Well, it is perfectly simple with my boat, (41' Newport, 8,500lb. lead keel) and most boats I would think, with a sufficient number of jack-stands, chained together and properly spaced to take the load, to take up on each screw a half-turn in unison to the point that the entire boat lifts off the keel blocks. Then just paint away, as many coats as you like.
I'm fortunate to have a club-owned yard (not open to the public) where it is DIY and since I have been doing it this way for over twenty-five years nobody even gives it a second thought. But unfortunately DIY yards are soon to be a thing of the past thanks to environmental regs.

That sounds familiar!

I've made up something similar to what you're suggesting and it works fine. The screw type props are what we call "acrow props" in Australia and used in the construction industry (But according to my boaty friends I won't be allowed to use them in a marina)

When I want to paint under a pad I loosen off the prop completely, paint then re-position the prop up against the hull.

Clive

Northbound44 · 26-09-2018, 04:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinwater

Slime, yes, barnacles may be just the opposite.

I was rather surprised to see zero grown inside the centerboard case. Not even any bottom paint.

---

It doesn't take a storm, just a mistake. [Although I'm not sure I've ever heard of a multihull falling off the stands, hurricanes excluded....

]

Based on this picture, four stands to block this boat was clearly insufficient. The power washer beside the boat is the professional kind used by the boat yard. In this situation, I think this boat fell not because of the owner’s mistake but due to the negligence of the boat yard.

valhalla360 · 26-09-2018, 05:06

Never had an issue with a quick coat slapped on in the slings.

I would always go extra heavy but it would appear pretty much just as the rest of the boat at next haul out.

coopec43 · 26-09-2018, 05:15

Maybe Contessa rolled because the mast had been left up?

"For example, let's look at the vibration issue for a moment. When the boat is on the hard, it is held in a rigid position. Wind gusts will shake it, whereas if it is in the water, it will heel to the gusts, reducing the pressure on the rig. " (TOM ALTHUIS)

(According to one person commenting, yards in Scotland insist all masts on yacht on the hard have to be removed)

Clive

fatherchronica · 01-10-2018, 06:57

I have had yards reset the stands multiple times for blister repairs and then just keep moving them while I paint, I was charged I am sure, but not questioned. I would return to those yards.

jonase · 01-10-2018, 07:06

Where I am from the boat yard will never let you paint while the boat is in the slings. Usually the have a large number of boats to handle each day and no free cranes. To have one boat occupy one of the cranes for an hour would never be allowed.

I use one extra pair of Brownell boat stands. For my boat Brownell recommends that I should use 6 stands, but I actually use 8 stands. I then losen one stand at a time, paint and let it dry for aprox 15 min. When this is done I tighten the stand and loosen the next one. There is never less than 6 stands (3 per side) that is supporting the boat. I see no risk in this since I will never have less stands then what Brownell recommends

My previous boat (2500 kg) was much lighter then my current boat. On that boat I used 6 boat stands to slowly jack the boat less than half an inch above the keel blocks. I could then move the blocks to an area of the keel that had been painted and lower the boat again. Once this was done I could get access to the areas that had not been painted.

Antares Sky · 01-10-2018, 07:28

I belong to a sailing club, that is run as cooperative.
As such we do not have payed staff for launch and haul. We rent several large Cranes that lift out boats in the fall and back in in the spring. With more then 200 sailboat all going into the water in one day, there is absolutely no time to paint the bottom of the keel. Under the pads one at a time yes that I can do. Only way I can figure out how to get the bottom of my keel painted would to have it hauled out at a marina and paint it. A big cost though, just to paint 3 square feet. :-(

Glen

Michael Conway-Brown · 01-10-2018, 09:15

In the Pacific Northwest I get a foot thick of mussels on the bottom of my keel, especially where the keel blocks were. I chased the boat in slings with a wet brush; it didn't work. Next time I will move the keel blocks by lifting with the pad jacks. I'll use extra jacks and chain them in pairs. The yard almost never chains them together. It's a light small boat. I don't think my yard will even care, but I will query first. A big boat would make me nervous doing that, but with lots of jack pairs: what could go wrong?

I once saw a big power boat set on a keel block and the keel just collapsed under the weight! Ouch!!!

MJH · 01-10-2018, 10:08

I have taken photos of the boat and hull during her haul-out for a record and analysis. Looking back over these photos I see few occasions where excessive growth has occurred on the locations where the blocking pads were placed and painted while the boat was in the slings. Growth was always in the usual spots: prop, prop zincs, hull zincs, dynaplate, the concave portion of the skeg assembly (a bitch to remove), and bottom of the keel. There have been some strange slime though. There was a time long ago when moving the pads once by the yard during painting was included in your cost...but those days are gone. But I have found better paint adhesion can be achieved on the bottom of the keel by better preparation which in my case is scrapping with a putty knife followed by a stiff wire brush.

~ ~ _/) ~ ~ MJH