MilliBee with a haircut?

[inwe]

Paul
I would go with the jacking option. Its all nearer to the ground. I had to elevate Canulla and jacking was the much preferred option. I managed 6" at a time with a 5ton army jack. I think if I had gone with the lifting option I might have pulled the barn down. If you still go with the chain block option I have one you can borrow. It's a one ton block and allowing the 50% overload allowance for English chains, !00% if Russian. It should suffice. But seriously consider jacking her up first. You can easily stop her rolling with a 5x2 either side.
The other alternative is using a heavy cargo strap under the stern. You can lift quite along way done carefully.

Richard

[Jeremy]

One thing you could do with that brass hinge, Paul, is trim down it's width so that it's parallel.  Ten minutes with a belt sander on either side could well give you a narrower, parallel sided hinge that would do the job a treat.  If it were me I'd pop the hinge in the milling machine and inside five minutes have machined off either side to be square, rather than tapered, but a session of filing or a attacking it with  a belt sander would probably do as good a job.

[Paul H (admin)]

Chaps,

Thanks for all the great ideas. Plan D-2 is to use the trailer jockey wheel to jack her up (think about it):

Drop tow hitch as low as possible and support under transom with a strong V section frame that stops her rolling.

Use the jockey wheel to get the tow hitch as high as possible. Support with V section under the mast that is wide enough span the wheels. Blocks under the jockey wheel will gain more height.

Using blocks either end it might be possible to get extra height by repeating the tow hitch up/down sequence. But I think the steps above will get her almost two feet above the concrete.

When trailer has done it's job slide it out (essential to clear the centreboard)

Continue with jacks and more blocks as required.

-Paul

PS Drink more beer now and run through the Health and Safety risk analysis in 10 seconds.

PPS In the past a good 3x3 fence post could take half her weight (250kg?). An 8ft post would clear the wheels.

[Paul H (admin)]

inwe wrote

I would go with the jacking option. Its all nearer to the ground. I had to elevate Canulla and jacking was the much preferred option. I managed 6" at a time with a 5ton army jack.
Richard

Something like this, with 275mm stroke (10in)?

http://www.sgs-engineering.com/tbj5-5-ton-telescopic-bottle-jack?___store=sgs_en&___store=sgs_en&gclid=CL3ymeaA8cICFSYIwwodpAYALA

-Paul

[Port-Na-Storm]

Build yourself a great big car/trailer/boat ramp.
Go down your local tool hire shop and get a couple of scaffolding boards and some staging or one of those access towers. Use a chain hoist or similar, fixed to something solid,  to pull the boat and trailer up the ramp onto a level spot. Chock the boat up then roll the trailer back down the slope.
Fit centre board.
Reverse previous process to put boat back on trailer.

Or

Why can't the board go in from the top?

[Paul H (admin)]

Port-Na-Storm wrote

Or

Why can't the board go in from the top?

It can, but the main bulkhead is about 60% aft of the case. So the board has to drop vertical about 2 feet under MilliBee before it can twist horizontal. The trailer central beam blocks the case, so the trailer has to be removed.

The 4-ton SGS bottle jack has a stroke of 345mm (13.5in) which makes jacking much more viable.

BTW:
I've recently bought a sliding saw which can cut 220mm x 60mm, like scaffold planks or 3x3in posts for strong support beams. £99 from Screwfix and the blade can cut steel, aluminium and wood:



Link: Rage 3S Sliding Saw

-Paul

[simplesimon]

Paul (admin) wrote

The tricky bit is the A-frame at the top end.    Any thoughts?

The classic answer would be to lift using a car jack or something, and then build a crib (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_crib) under the hull/trailer. We do this to get the powerboats on and off trolleys at the centre. (Actually we use axle stands as much as we use timber, but getting hold of high axle stands is not easy - look for "tractor stands")

Otherwise, if you are feeling like taking a risk, you might consider a braced Acrow jack under your beam. (I can see John holding his head in his hands)

Simon

[LASER41420]

Hi,
Enough of all these high tech approaches, do you know anyone who
has a garage with an inspection pit?
Steve

[Randonneur]

Personally I wouldn't lift the boat at all!
When I've had to work underneath Johanna, which weighs twice as much as MilliBee,   I simply slide her off the trailer and roll her over on her side. It's an easy 2 man job (with a custom cradle) but could, with a bit of ingenuity, be done solo. You will have easy access to both top and bottom without the fear of anything falling on you.  Ratcatcher would approve!
PP

On 1 Jan 2015 10:13, "simplesimon [via UK HBBR Forum]" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Paul (admin) wrote

The tricky bit is the A-frame at the top end.    Any thoughts?

The classic answer would be to lift using a car jack or something, and then build a crib (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_crib) under the hull/trailer. We do this to get the powerboats on and off trolleys at the centre. (Actually we use axle stands as much as we use timber, but getting hold of high axle stands is not easy - look for "tractor stands")

Otherwise, if you are feeling like taking a risk, you might consider a braced Acrow jack under your beam. (I can see John holding his head in his hands)

Simon

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[Paul H (admin)]

Simon,

Thanks for the box crib solution. That could work well for lifting the bow end, I have spare fence posts to chop up. The transom needs a custom V support probably resting on 2 car jacks.
I would need a bridge for the bow end, wide enough for the trailer wheels to pass under.

Pete,
Its very difficult to get her off the trailer onto the sloping concrete drive. Also her beam of 6ft makes rolling a very brave 2 man exercise. With my bad back that's a non starter, but still a good idea as we have done it before. I wonder if an electric winch on the house could roll her....

Lots of ideas to consider chaps...I'm still thinking about the best solution. The drive slopes at 3 degrees towards the house which adds a slight risk.

-Paul

[Paul H (admin)]

LASER41420 wrote

Enough of all these high tech approaches, do you know anyone who
has a garage with an inspection pit?

No, but that's my dream - a garage with winch and inspection pit!

[Jeremy]

I once had to lift the old gaffer I restored to refit her keel (which was a big lump of lead, bolted on).  Minus keel she weighed around 3/4 tonne or more at a guess (pitch pine on oak, 22ft LOD, fairly typical Cornish-type construction from around 1920).

I did it over the course of a day, using a single 1 1/2 tonne car bottle jack and lots of baulks of timber.  I had the initial advantage that she was resting on a launching dolly, resting on her keelson (which was a pretty big lump of oak) and this was around a foot off the ground.  The ground was just a gravel area around the side of the house.  

The process was to jack her up a few inches at one end, slide in timbers underneath and adjust the props and wedges to keep her upright, then do the same process at the other end.  I probably repeated this a dozen or more times until I had enough room to get the keel, with all it's big bolts already fitted through from the bottom (so protruding upwards by several inches above the keep upper face) slid in on rollers underneath (which was frankly more scary than lifting the boat, as the keel was around 1/2 tonne and I was scared stiff that it'd fall over.

Having smeared suitable gloop over the mating surfaces I was then faced with lowering the boat back down on to the keel, quickly before the gloop (Sikaflex, IIRC) went off.  Not easy, as I had to make sure all the keel bolts went back up their holes.  I found lowering the boat a damned sight more stressful than raising it, as I was, by then, working against the clock.

I found that taking things very slowly during the lift made the job pretty easy, it just needed a lot of patience, but there wasn't much in the way of hard work using a jack and baulks to lift the boat, and I never once felt that anything was likely to get out of control.  IIRC the mast was up and I did tie the mast to the side of the house with a rigid prop, as a safety precaution in case the boat felt like tipping over if any of the props fell out as I jacked her up.  In practice, the lift was so slow, that she was always well supported by the props at the opposite end to the end I was jacking up.

I did the whole job on my own, and other than a bit of head scratching when it came to ways to hold her up for the final bit, so there was room for several feet of long keel to slide in from astern, it wasn't that hard.

[Paul H (admin)]

Paul (admin) wrote

LASER41420 wrote

Enough of all these high tech approaches, do you know anyone who
has a garage with an inspection pit?

No, but that's my dream - a garage with winch and inspection pit!

Edit: also WARM with a fridge for beer.

[Paul H (admin)]

Jeremy wrote

I once had to lift the old gaffer I restored to refit her keel (which was a big lump of lead, bolted on).  Minus keel she weighed around 3/4 tonne or more at a guess (pitch pine on oak, 22ft LOD, fairly typical Cornish-type construction from around 1920).

I did it over the course of a day, using a single 1 1/2 tonne car bottle jack and lots of baulks of timber.  

That seems to be the best approach, slow and steady. Semi-permanent supports are always needed, with or without a winch.

My plan for the bow is a scaffold plank cut to about 190cm long with 60cm supports to clear the mudguard height; that will allow the trailer to be removed.

At the moment the transom is 60cm off the concrete, more with the jockey wheel removed, so that starts at a useful height.

I happen to have a spare scaffold plank........

Paul

[Port-Na-Storm]

I reckon the best, safest, and lowest tech solution would be for half a dozen of us to get round the thing and lift it.
According to the selway fisher web site her dry weight is around 425lbs. If we only lift one end at a time we should be able to do that.
I'm up for a run to Gloucester, anyone else?
By the way, Happy New Year everyone.
Grum,
New Year's Resolution; "stop pi**ing around and get on with it."

[Ratcatcherjohn]

If your idea flies Graham I am not too far away.  In fact you would not need too much of a scenic detour to collect me and possibly a few extra baulks of timber if required.

John   ( Rodent Entrapment & HSE Retired )

---

Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2015 07:00:57 -0700
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: MilliBee with a haircut?

I reckon the best, safest, and lowest tech solution would be for half a dozen of us to get round the thing and lift it.
According to the selway fisher web site her dry weight is around 425lbs. If we only lift one end at a time we should be able to do that.
I'm up for a run to Gloucester, anyone else?
By the way, Happy New Year everyone.
Grum,
New Year's Resolution; "stop pi**ing around and get on with it."

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NAML

[Chris Waite]

Hadders, eh?

This end a suggestion has previously been mooted that if you were to still be 'backed'-up come the March heat wave, then a posse could be formed to charge over the skyline and finish sealing the remnants of your bilge board cases.

Now the thought makes even more sense.  I've jacked up 'Tit Willow' on most of a dozen occasions, such that she even has a formal frame -



'Jack' is the operative word.  The rear posts stop her rolling over and the cross beam can be pinned at six inch intervals up to two foot six inches, to allow for insertion of the centreplate.  You probably would not need to get the bow up anything like that high.

In fact I now have a second frame intended to go down on a waterfront at low tide, so that I can pop her over it while on her trailer, then slide that out to avoid having to immerse its precious bearings and brakes.  The frame fits just behind the trailer aft, with chocks to hold her just above trailer height and I have a stout box section of about one metre and a couple of axle stands so that I can jack under the fore foot and slide the trailer out, one piece of its frame at a time.  I've not tried this yet, but it is so much like the other one, I don't foresee a problem.

Did I ever tell you about the time I took the head off a car engine down on the beach to fix a valve?  I'd got the big gaffer up against the piles and had nothing to do after scrubbing her bottom, except wait for the tide to come back.  It all went quite well until I stripped the thread on a stud.

Then I had to phone home to the Minister of the Interior, explain where there was a box of spare studs in the garage and get her to bring me one pronto.  It was a race against tide

What a sausage

I can't come over there now - too many exciting family things happening; doctory-hospital and conveyancing stuff....

But in a couple of months and long before you'll have finished all the other vital bits; that untoward ventilation around the forward end of the cabin and maybe even the rig?

OMG, THE RIG!!

CW  

[Paul H (admin)]

Graham, John,

Many thanks for the offer of help. There is a pub within staggering distance and a spare room in our house.

New Years Resolution:
This is my year of recovery, so keep on exercising. (aka boat building )


-Paul

[Paul H (admin)]

Chris Waite wrote

Hadders, eh?

This end a suggestion has previously been mooted that if you were to still be 'backed'-up come the March heat wave, then a posse could be formed to charge over the skyline and finish sealing the remnants of your bilge board cases.

Now the thought makes even more sense.  I've jacked up 'Tit Willow' on most of a dozen occasions, such that she even has a formal frame -

But in a couple of months and long before you'll have finished all the other vital bits; that untoward ventilation around the forward end of the cabin and maybe even the rig?

OMG, THE RIG!!

CW

CW - that is a serious support frame! Sailing in March? I reckon right now I could just about get to the Trout Inn for a gentle electric drive down the Thames.

The Rig? I'd go for a stayed balanced lug which (I think) has one bit of string to hold, so the other hand can hold the Pimms

Gunter first with that orange rig from your friend, now slightly green in places due to being stored outside. Nothing a good wash can't fix.

Rummaging in the shed I stumbled over a piece of wood that looked a lot like her bowsprit prototype. It was indeed, made from a recycled bilge case, and suitably long enough to sport a Wayfarer Genoa for some serious welly. With her larger foredeck, big enough for some musicians if things get bad, and sleek lower cabin tacking should be a breeze.

Untoward ventilation? Nonsense it's covered with Duct tape, so problem fixed and head for the bar using Rowing Chris's flow chart.

-Paul

[Jeremy]

I like that steel frame, CW.  

I ended up making something similar, but with four posts and some big cast iron wheels (originally from some bit of industrial equipment) as a launching/shore storage dolly for my old gaffer.  The boat used to be towed down the slip at low tide on the dolly (courtesy of the local farmer's tractor) and then left there to float off as the tide came in, whereupon the boat would be moved out to her mooring and the dolly recovered with a bit of rope and stored away until the autumn.

Getting her out was the same process in reverse, just float her in between the four posts sticking up out of the water, tie her loosely, watch carefully to make sure she settled into the channel at the bottom of the dolly as the tide went out a bit, then get the tractor to pull her up and into the yard for the winter.

Worked well until we moved to Portpatrick and I had a (free) harbour mooring, when all of us there had to collectively hire a big crane twice a year to get us all in and out of the water.