keelhaul_paul
New Member
Anyone have dimensions to build a wood cradle for a E-29?
I have a trailer that I could give you dimensions of relitive to the bottom of the keel and pictures if you would like.
Randy
770-574-5709
The E29 is right on the edge of what you can haul (in the USA) without a commercial drivers license. (Maybe just a teensy bit over ) But do-able if you’re careful and have the right equipment and have some experience with hauling big loads with light equipment (I.e. Farm Kid.) Randy was kind enough to send me dimensions of his trailer and I used them to build a cradle that sits on a flatbed trailer that I already had. (See pics over in the blog panel. It’s not really as sketchy as it looks. Really.)
It probably depends on supply and demand in your immediate area, but having done it both ways, I’ve found that it’s cheaper to hire a commercial crane (especially if you can share the cost with a couple of other boat owners - E.g. your local yacht club) than to use a boat yard’s travel lift. Not to mention the convenience of having the boat hauled five miles from home instead of a hundred miles.
Trailer-launching an E29 would require just the right ramp and tide and custom trailer that might cost more than the boat. (Unless you are equipped to build it yourself.) And a pretty hefty all-wheel-drive truck, with maybe a big winch. Randy might be the only person who can do it!
It’s probably possible to rent somebody else’s trailer for a day, and have the crane follow you home and lift the boat onto stands in your yard, but I’m guessing that’s probably about a $2K proposition. (Cranes charge for time and fiddling around with the mast can take as much or more time as lifting the boat.)
I'd guess if you're moving the boat into a yard, you'd be stuck with whatever the travel lift operator charges. The bright side is you might not have to drop the mast (unless you want to.) Re: cranes. You might ask around your marina about how people haul out and the logistics. Or call up some local crane companies and ask if they routinely haul sailboats and where and how they like to do it. Chances are they have it down to a routine. In part, the size of crane required will depend on the horizontal distance over which the boat has to be moved. Less is better, obviously.
For example, in our marina, the crane can drive right out on the jetty (which is also the beach parking lot) and pick boats from a spot on the inside of the cruise-ship dock. We just pulled our trailers up in a line and wrangled the boats into the pick point one at a time. Someone else was the ring-leader, but IIRC, a crane large enough to lift the E29 (which was the fat boy of the bunch) cost $750 per hour (also the minimum charge) - maybe the second hour was a bit less. In two hours, five or six boats were hauled and my share was somewhere around $200. (The guy with the stopwatch told me exactly how much to fork over and I did - no receipt. I might have written it in the log book.) So if one goes it alone, it's $750, which is sort of in line with what the travel lifts charge, but 100 miles closer, for me. I've heard much lower prices quoted up North. And of course, it's less if you don't pull the mast, or pay their "trailer-fitting fee." ("Oh, did the yard manager shake your hand when you walked in?" Hospitality fee...) Supply & demand.
It probably wouldn't be too hard to raise and lower the mast with a gin pole if it's rigged carefully. But if the boat doesn't have a tabernacle, you'd need to control the foot carefully. Depending on how it's rigged and accouterments, the mast probably weighs somewhere around 350 lbs. (A bit more involved than the Hobie 16, when I used to just get my shoulder under it and heave.) Well... I did recently move the mast inside by lashing one end to an appliance dolly and lifting the other end on my shoulder. In a series of short movements. Getting it up and down from atop the pulpits to ground level is... a bit more traumatic, but I've done it twice without breaking anything. Much. (Hint: If manhandling the mast off the deck, first remove all the stanchions on the working side.) Having the crane at hand definitely makes life easier.
350lbs for the mast? Wow, I didn't expect that much. My friend's MacGregor 26 mast seems like about 50lbs max. The yard charges $150/hr for the crane, so I'll have to see what the minimum is.