Jeff W
07-19-2009, 12:17 PM
Listen to me rant.
So I find a cheap 3500 lbs Shoremaster lift about 2.5 hours north of Minneapolis. I round up a flatbed trailer from a rental place and a couple of my good buddies and we decide to make a Saturday of it. It's only 60 degrees so we can't be on the water anyways.
To start off - the state of MN is doing bridge inspections on the main freeway we had to take. So a 10 minute stretch takes us an hour and a half. We're already behind. 30 minutes later - we stop for a beer and when we come back out to the truck, it won't shift out of park. We find our brake lights on my Pathfinder aren't working. So we spend 30 minutes trouble shooting and find it's a fuse. (3 fuse boxes on this truck - ridiculous).
We finally get to the lift. They have it out of the water (thankfully) and we get ready to load it. Oh great, it's steel. Not aluminum. Weighs maybe 1200 lbs or so instead of the 5-600 we were expecting. After an hour struggle - we finally use high jacks and some wheels and get it onto the trailer. Dang. It's already 4pm and we were hoping to be DONE by 5pm..
So we drag it back to Minneapolis no issues and head down to my lake. The slip that I have my boat on (private home) has the house WAY up on a hill and the land is down lakeside. THe next door neighbor has a completely flat property and shoreline right down to my boat. Well, since the lift is not 500 lbs but instead 1200 lbs - the plan to roll it down the beach is a big no go with only 3 guys. Plan B was to actually drive my truck and the trailer down the bitch (over neighbors beach) and drop it at my dock. Neighbor comes out (had previously discussed with him) and says that recently he had 4 loads of sand added to his beach. So we walk the beach and there is absolutely NO way the truck won't sink.
So what do we do? We're stuck.
Right now - we've got the lift sitting way up on the hill at the house, I had to return the trailer, we can't bring it down the hill due to the landscape and the trees in the way.
So we have 2 options. The first option is try to get 10 or so guys and actually lift and walk the lift down the beach. Problem is, I don't even know if I could round up 10 guys to help and get them all at the same time. And that's still a LOT of weight for everyone to carry (it's probably 200 yards). The second option is put the wheels back on the trailer, get 6 guys (one on each corner and 2 pushing) and lay down boards and just leap frog board all the way down the beach so that the lift wheels wont sink.
What the heck do I do? Argh. This boat has been SO much work already. I wish I could just enjoy it but all I'm doing is working.
Thanks for listening to me bitch. :o
So I find a cheap 3500 lbs Shoremaster lift about 2.5 hours north of Minneapolis. I round up a flatbed trailer from a rental place and a couple of my good buddies and we decide to make a Saturday of it. It's only 60 degrees so we can't be on the water anyways.
To start off - the state of MN is doing bridge inspections on the main freeway we had to take. So a 10 minute stretch takes us an hour and a half. We're already behind. 30 minutes later - we stop for a beer and when we come back out to the truck, it won't shift out of park. We find our brake lights on my Pathfinder aren't working. So we spend 30 minutes trouble shooting and find it's a fuse. (3 fuse boxes on this truck - ridiculous).
We finally get to the lift. They have it out of the water (thankfully) and we get ready to load it. Oh great, it's steel. Not aluminum. Weighs maybe 1200 lbs or so instead of the 5-600 we were expecting. After an hour struggle - we finally use high jacks and some wheels and get it onto the trailer. Dang. It's already 4pm and we were hoping to be DONE by 5pm..
So we drag it back to Minneapolis no issues and head down to my lake. The slip that I have my boat on (private home) has the house WAY up on a hill and the land is down lakeside. THe next door neighbor has a completely flat property and shoreline right down to my boat. Well, since the lift is not 500 lbs but instead 1200 lbs - the plan to roll it down the beach is a big no go with only 3 guys. Plan B was to actually drive my truck and the trailer down the bitch (over neighbors beach) and drop it at my dock. Neighbor comes out (had previously discussed with him) and says that recently he had 4 loads of sand added to his beach. So we walk the beach and there is absolutely NO way the truck won't sink.
So what do we do? We're stuck.
Right now - we've got the lift sitting way up on the hill at the house, I had to return the trailer, we can't bring it down the hill due to the landscape and the trees in the way.
So we have 2 options. The first option is try to get 10 or so guys and actually lift and walk the lift down the beach. Problem is, I don't even know if I could round up 10 guys to help and get them all at the same time. And that's still a LOT of weight for everyone to carry (it's probably 200 yards). The second option is put the wheels back on the trailer, get 6 guys (one on each corner and 2 pushing) and lay down boards and just leap frog board all the way down the beach so that the lift wheels wont sink.
What the heck do I do? Argh. This boat has been SO much work already. I wish I could just enjoy it but all I'm doing is working.
Thanks for listening to me bitch. :o