Moving Your Boat Around by Hand
A few methods to save the strain of handling your boat out of the water
Even fairly small boats can be difficult, if not back-breaking, to move around the yard or shop by hand. A good trailer jack wheel helps on a smooth surface, but what are some other methods for manhandling a small boat on land?
Trailer dollies can be a big help, offering more leverage for a small boat on a trailer.
Small boats without trailers are often moved around with something like the Dinghy Dolly.
Here’s a “Universal Canoe And Boat Dolly” for boats to about 250 pounds.
This guy shows how he built his own boat dolly.
SEAMAX makes a boat dolly system you can remove.
Folks with larger boats on trailers can save some effort with an electric trailer dolly. This one runs on a 350w motor and can move boats to 3500 pounds or 600 pounds of wheel load.
And finally, the wealthy among us can eliminate the struggles of any manual effort at all with the “Trailer Valet” a remote-control trailer mover with a 9000-pound capacity. At only $4400 each, it might make sense to buy one for each boat!
ANOTHER APPROACH
Here’s a neat dolly/trailer designed by Darryl Carver. We saw it in operation and it was very slick!
Tell us about your own methods or inventions. —Eds •SCA•
On advice from fellow TSCA member Dave Luckhardt, I cut the hard plastic single wheel off my trailer jackstand and replaced it with a twin pneumatic wheel set from Croft. The boat plus aluminum Trailex trailer weigh around 500 lb. With the big wheels it rolls nicely on pavement and hard gravel, kind of a big dolly. Photo of the wheels:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricks_boats/48069057556/in/album-72157615244295923/lightbox/
We like the Dynamic Dollies line that we carry, they have sling or bunk styles that take down easily into 3 main pieces (axle, 2 for handle) so they stow really easily. (Seitech is good too, we used to stock them for a number of years.) Dynamic also has a dolly/trailer combo that we set up for a customer last year... kind of a novel idea though the trailer didn't seem quite as sturdy as we would have hoped. (Can't comment on how well it's held up since the customer took it home.) ~KM