woopei wrote:
Does anyone have any ideas on getting a 25 - 29 foot boat from stands onto a flatbed trailer
without a crane. I would like to buy the cheapies on Ebay and try to turn a little profit but
getting them is a problem. I have a flatbed trailer and have thought of making a generic
'lift' that I can jack up on site, move the trailer under it and then lower the boat on the trailer.
I have fixed up and sold several boats on Ebay but always ones with swing keels that
have standard boat trailers so I have zero experience with stands, cradles and transporting
larger boats.


How much time & effort do you want to put into it? There are
big boat trailers with hydraulic arms spicifically built to
pick up & transport large keelboats from their jack stands,
without using any other equipment. I bet they're expensive.

An alternative would be to build a pair of H-frames that you
could drive your trailer under, that could also support
boats from sling on the upper arm. Winch the boat up onto
the H-frames, drive the trailer under, lower the slings,
vroom away you go.

Or you could use a couple of chain hoists & temprory (and at
least partly sacrificial) lumber skid frames to drag the
boat up onto the trailer. That would cost far less but take
more time on each job.

For every engineering problem, there is a high, middle, and
low end solution

Fresh Breezes- Doug King