getting the outboard on the dinghy

[Cheechako]

Boom and mainsheet will work, but is hard to get outboard far enough. Make sure you have a very long mainsheet and some tackle to hold the boom out. Or you can use a spinnaker halyard and whisker pole to do it.
I will say, the $200 kicker boom crane I bought was one of the best purchases I made on a couple of boats. Very useful. I dont know if they are more $ now though.

[Mr O]

My 9.9 hp outboard weighs about 85lbs and is a pain to get off the rail even with a davit and harness. It was hard to control unless the water is very calm. One time in sloppy anchorage the motor crashed in the hull. Darn ship wake snuck up on me! Since then, I hand-carry a 3hp electric outboard onto my RIB with ease. I can do this with one hand on the rail and one holding the motor. It’s very light. Haven’t used the 9.9 motor since. That was a year and a half ago.

[SteveSadler]

Leave the engine on the dink, lash it to the mast on the foredeck. Run a line from mast to foredeck cleat so sheets don't hook on the engine. To launch, use your halyard on a bridle, pick it up, swing it over the side and lower till it floats. Then add slack
so it won't jerk while rolling. This is much faster and safer than handling the engine alone in a wiggling dink.

[FabioC]

+1 Garhauer as well.
I do not have one on my boat, but a neighbor at my dock has it and I have observed him using it (single handed). It seems to work as a charm.

[akprb]

Ok, I’ll break from the pack.

Try doing it with nothing.

40lb is awkward but manageable. Step by step and you are going down, not up. Once laying in the dinghy you are home free.

To get it back up if really stuck a great way to meet a neighbor.

All the gadgets and halyards, blocks and tackles may be avoided with this method.

Oh and hit the gym, good excuse to get those muscles back in shape which is one other great benefit of sailing, fitness :-)

I once had a 9.9 I stared at for hours trying to figure out how to get on. Stared at the overhead for many sleepless nights. Then one morning just went out and slowly moved it from position to position. Whole operation took ten minutes.

“The fear is usually greater than the reality”

[AndyEss]

[QUOTE=akprb;2843927]Ok, I’ll break from the pack.

Try doing it with nothing.

40lb is awkward but manageable. Step by step and you are going down, not up. Once laying in the dinghy you are home free.

To get it back up if really stuck a great way to meet a neighbor.

All the gadgets and halyards, blocks and tackles may be avoided with this method.

Oh and hit the gym, good excuse to get those muscles back in shape which is one other great benefit of sailing, fitness :-)

While 40 lbs isn't bad, we are assigned only only one back/spine, and replacement parts are hard to come by.
The great thing about gadgets, halyards, blocks and tackles is that they are gadgets, halyards, blocks and tackles.

Outboards have a tendency to creep up in size. We all tend to get older, and accumulate an ever increasing amount of injuries.

Boating is good exercise and a way to rejuvenate ourselves. Don't unduly sacrifice your health in using brute force instead of mechanical advantage.
And some anchorages just don't have a neighboring boat. Often, these are the best of all.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by yalnud

Probably the worst method one could use. Hey let's lift 40 pound over the side of the boat with or work point on the center line..... good way to jump a sheeve

We do it all the time, just hook the main or spinnaker halyard to the outboard security/lifting ring near the outboard clamp and crank it up or down. We even used this method on our 62 to hoist a 900 pound generator off the dock and into the saloon and into place under the floor boards.

Why knock a good idea unless you’ve tried it? There never seems to be a shortage of advice offered up on this forum by the inexperienced. Jim and Ann Cate have also use the same halyard lift method as we use.

Again... just use a halyard to hoist, then push out gently to the stern or side to wherever you want the outboard positioned, then let it down. A 40 pound outboard will only require about twenty pounds of outward force to place it. Easy... no more tension on a halyard than it has from the spinnaker running off to the side. We also use the halyards to load and off-load heavy sail bags, just as sailors have done for hundreds of years, long before specialty outboard slings were invented and sold at inflated prices.

We plan to load our 200 pound 40hp outboard onto the boat in this same manner this summer.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by akprb

Ok, I’ll break from the pack.

Try doing it with nothing.

40lb is awkward but manageable. Step by step and you are going down, not up. Once laying in the dinghy you are home free. ...

This is what we do. It’s one of the main reasons we have a small outboard — so we can manage it without mechanical assists. I have a 3.5hp 4-stroke (Tohatsu). The specs say 41#. It’s a bit awkward, but really not that hard to lift it up and down from our cockpit rail. We do it as a two-person job — one in the dingy and the other to help with stability, although I have done it by myself.

But not everyone will have the same setup as ours. For one, our cockpit is relatively low to the water compared to most other boats of similar size, so the lift distance is not great. And given our cockpit and boom length, I really don’t see any way to install a OB crane even if I wanted to, so necessity dictates.

I can use the boom if need be, but the vast majority of time it’s easier and quicker to just do the manual lift.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>We also use the halyards to load and off-load heavy sail bags, just as sailors have done for hundreds of years, long before specialty outboard slings were invented and sold at inflated prices.

As mentioned earlier, none of us ('cepting some close family members I know!) are getting any younger. When we bought our boat 20 years ago, there were a lot of things I could do then that I can't do now.


While I've forgotten my basic block & tackle mechanical advantage 101 class material, it seems that my 6:1 Garhauer purchase is a lot more than my halyard goin' up, over a single sheave and back down. 1:1 or 2:1? I forget.


My 9.9 1990 Evinrude is 74 pounds. Lots heavier than my old 1.2 Johnson kicker which I could one hand down to the dink.



One of the few things folks ever mention during these discussions is their age and condition. Since I don't wanna go there myself, I'll depend on those family members of mine who claim they're getting younger all the time to tell you how old and decrepit I'm getting to be...

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

As mentioned earlier, none of us ('cepting some close family members I know!) are getting any younger. When we bought our boat 20 years ago, there were a lot of things I could do then that I can't do now.


While I've forgotten my basic block & tackle mechanical advantage 101 class material, it seems that my 6:1 Garhauer purchase is a lot more than my halyard goin' up, over a single sheave and back down. 1:1 or 2:1? I forget.


My 9.9 1990 Evinrude is 74 pounds. Lots heavier than my old 1.2 Johnson kicker which I could one hand down to the dink.



One of the few things folks ever mention during these discussions is their age and condition. Since I don't wanna go there myself, I'll depend on those family members of mine who claim they're getting younger all the time to tell you how old and decrepit I'm getting to be...

The mechanical advantage is 1:1 using a halyard, but most of us use a winch to increase the mechanical advantage. I’m sure in most cases, it requires more energy to lift a mainsail than it does to lift a 40 pound outboard. So if one can raise the mainsail, genoa or spinnaker, one should also be able to lift a 40 pound outboard.

[hpeer]

Davis strap, we have one and do not like it. If for some reason the motor rotates in the strap it can come out. In other words it has no 100% safety.

It might be different with other outboards but not with our Yamaha.

I keep the Davis strap on 100% of the time. I’ve tied some additional lines to it, including a line around the handle, so that once on the lift it is impossible to come out short if breaking the “safety”.

Also the Davis strap we has a handle, but if you tighten the strap sufficiently you can’t get your fingers under the handle. So I use a soft shackle on the Davis handle to attach my lift snap.

We lift over the stern, 4:1 lift (handy billy/vang) off the arch which overhangs the transom (not a sugar scoop). I put on the snap, man handle the 8Hp 2 stroke off the arch mount, tighten up he lift, push the OB over the toe rail, lower it so the prop is under water (water dampens roll). Then I get in dink, pull OB Over transom and have Wife lower it. Then yell for her to give me slack before a wave picks the OB back off. Real fun to deal with boat pitching in a big swell.

I have actually transferred the OB from one Porta-Boat to another a couple of times. Just tied off a safety in case I drop it, tie the two OB’s together, and manhandle it over. I’m 68.

If I absolutely had to do it in a big swell with the boat pitching I would do it about midships, probably using the boom. Actually that’s what we do on the 33’er, 8Hp 2 stroke and 10’ PB.

If your a weekend sailor or only occasionally cruise it’s one thing. If you are a live aboard between islands in 7’ seas where to are taking the motor off and on a bunch that’s another thing.

My main thought being there multiple ways of doing it and the “right” way depends upon your boat, your OB, your body, the sea state, and how badly you need to do it “right now.”

[boatman1]

Perhaps not a helpful reponse, but your query illustrates a compelling reason for a hard floor dink vs an inflatable floor.I get in the dinghy and grab the motor (left on the deck) and in one fell swoop wrestle it to the transom. That's a fifteen horse engine weighing seventy pounds or so. I don't believe I could do that with other than a rigid floor.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by yalnud

Probably the worst method one could use. Hey let's lift 40 pound over the side of the boat with or work point on the center line..... good way to jump a sheeve

Hello, yalnud,

We have never experienced a problem with hoisting our 85 lb. 15 horse o/bs with the main halyard, never a sheave jumped, at least in over 30 yrs. of cruising, so I think your fears are unfounded. Incidentally, it requires 6 full rotations of the winch in high speed, only, way less than hoisting our mains'l.

Ann
s/v Insatiable II

PS. You might fill in your profile, "gender male" doesn't say anything about your experience with boats.

[stormalong]

I am 65 and manhandle a 3.5 hp 30 lb engine from my 44ft boat to the dinghy. It would actually be easier from a thirty footer because of less freeboard.

The engine is clamped to a board on the sternrail. Take the engine off the stern and hook the engine bracket over the lower lifeline with the engine hanging over the side. Get into the dinghy, lift the engine off of the lifeline and lay it down in the dinghy. Then lift it and slide the bracket onto the engine mount. These three moves should take less than 30 seconds each. I expect that most people could do this with 40 pounds - using both hands.

A couple of pointers:

1) To make it less likely for the engine to slip off of the sternrail mounting board or the dinghy engine mount position make two plastic spacers, about 3/4 X 1/2 inch and just a little bit shorter that the space between the two engine clamps. I use King starboard but any tough plastic would do. Screw one spacer down on the top edge of sternrail board and screw the other one on the top edge of the dinghy where the engine sits. Centering both. Now you have a self centering mount. When placing the engine in either location it is already centered and only needs to be clamped down.

2) Leave the engine clamps turned in a little bit so that it the engine clamp assembly rotates the pad on the clamp will snag on the lifeline wire preventing it from slipping off and falling into the water.

My 44 ft boat has a freeboard of about 46 inches, adding another foot to the lower lifeline means the the engine is sitting about five feet above the water. It needs to be lifted six to eight inches to get it off the lifeline. On a thirty footer the lift will be less. I always use two hands to control the lift so the dinghy must not be bouncing. A second person on the deck of the boat could have a line tied to a lifting harness to assist the person in the dinghy - maybe a good idea until you get used to the process.

After you do this a few times you will understand how easy it is.

[Kenomac]

Question:

Why would any of you prefer to “manhandle” heavy objects onboard if you have halyards to do the lifting for you? Plus you risk dropping the thing into the ocean.