My wife and I have a place in Virginia with a boatlift at the dock.
Whenever we go on the lake I have back out of the slip and wait for my
wife to bring the lift back up (it's a very slow process). When she
gets it a foot or so out of the water, I come up alongside the floater
dock and she jumps in. When we come back, we reverse the process.
The alternative is to leave the lift in the water all day.

It occurred to me that almost no one raises a garage door by hand any
more. I should think a mechanical engineer with a bit of initiative
could easily adapt a garage door opener to control a boatlift. The
major difference would be the ability to specify up or down motion
instead of the single button that toggles up or down.

Another BIG advantage to this would be the pressure sensitive stop
switch. All garage door openers have this. It seems that every year
or so I hear about someone who pulled his boat out and forgot to turn
off the slow moving lift. The inevitable result is that the lift goes
to the bottom then comes back up until it jams against the roof of the
boathouse and burns up the motor. A safety switch would eliminate
that.

I'm wondering if anyone ever heard of such a thing. Has anyone ever
seen one? I'm a bit surprised that Cabela's or West Marine doesn't
sell one. Granted, the market isn't all that large, but it seems like
such a simple adaptation. And since it's for a boat it would sell for
at 2-3 times the price of a typical garage door opener.

Hey! Are you folks at Stanley and Genie paying attention?

Alan Hannas