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To lift or not to lift

skipperbill

skipperbill

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Location
Grand Rapids, MI
I am awaiting delivery of my new pontoon. My previous pontoon was a '91 JC Fishfinder 20 that was kind of a beater so only the helm was covered and it was not on a lift. The lake I'm on is not that rough and the old boat seemed to do fine securely tied up to the dock with bumpers. Being that this is a brand new boat (bigger and heavier) and all, I am wondering whether I should go to the additional expense of purchasing a lift. I'm not as concerned about the pontoons getting dirty as much as the benefits of security/peace of mind, etc. I'm not excited to shell out another $4-5K on a lift, especially since the water near from frontage is kind of shallow. I would, of course, cover it at the end of every weekend. Any thoughts?
 
IMHO go with a lift, you won't regret it. Too bad we are not close as I am in Northern Wisconsin and I'll have a 3,000 # ShoreStation with canopy and power lift for sale shortly. With our new Benny I am going with a 5,000 #, direct drive lift with extended canopy.
 
My lake fortunately lets us build full boathouses, and we hang our boats out of the water with Ace style lifts.

I attribute my last pontoon boat lasting 27 years to keeping it up and out of the water--and the deck and upholstery dry.

By all means, go with the lift to protect your investment.
 
I agree with others here. With an investment like that, it just makes sense to keep it up out of the water and as dry and blocked from UV exposure as much as possible.
 
Lift +1
 
Sounds like I need to go with the lift. I have been looking into a lift made by captainschoicedocks. http://www.captainschoicedocks.com/hydraulic-boat-lift/. I am leaning towards the "under the crossmembers" type like this rather than under the bunks due to the lower profile they have, especially important for shallow water. For the size I would need (4500#, 120" width, only 18" from the lake bottom), they are charging $4300 including hydraulics. Any thoughts on this particular style? I've already talked to the owner and they have modified them to work perfectly with tritoons, including our 32" elliptical. Any of you bored out there and care to give any input on the website/pictures? Thanks to all the responses. This forum is great for sorting out these matters.
 
We also live on a shallow lake and I put "sea-legs" on my pontoon rather than get a lift. They will lift the pontoon out of the water and provide a solid platform if you just want to sit and enjoy the water. They will normally lift about 6', front and back can operate independantly if the surface is slanted. It also works well in mucky areas as long as there is a solid bottom somewhere.
 
I plan to take a closer look at these if they have a display at the Cottage and Lakefront Living show here in Grand Rapids. They look awesome. I have a few concerns though: if I'm buying a performance tritoon to take the place of a ski boat, should I possibly hamper that performance with what would seem to be extra weight and water drag? Also, I plan to have the marina put my boat in and out with one of their "under the deck" trailers so I can store it in my garage easier. Can u lift these without damaging the hardware with that type of trailer? I hope to have these questions answered if I can talk to a Sealegs rep.
 
skipperbill said:
I plan to take a closer look at these if they have a display at the Cottage and Lakefront Living show here in Grand Rapids. They look awesome. I have a few concerns though: if I'm buying a performance tritoon to take the place of a ski boat, should I possibly hamper that performance with what would seem to be extra weight and water drag? Also, I plan to have the marina put my boat in and out with one of their "under the deck" trailers so I can store it in my garage easier. Can u lift these without damaging the hardware with that type of trailer? I hope to have these questions answered if I can talk to a Sealegs rep.
Click to expand...
Center lift is not going to work well with the ESP, as there is only 10" in there and the splash shields can interfere too. Also, once the dealer gets it there, he has to handle it with special forklifts to move it to move it to storage racks or wherever. Mine goes on an under pontoon lift all summer, but I decided to buy a trailer just for storage and service. There is a thread elsewhere here describing what I bought, but I'd highly recommend it.
 
I highly respect the real-world opinions of both of you. Therefore, I will have to double-check with the dealer because he did assure me that their tritoon trailer would fit on either side of the center toon. I plan to store the boat in my garage (as I currently do the previous boat which is on bunks but is a bitch to get through the 7-ft high door and has already resulted in some damage). The ride to the launch is only 5 miles. Believe me, I plan to pamper this baby and am hoping this plan will work. If not, I'll get a bunk-style trailer, have the boat shrink-wrapped and store it at the marina.
 
Just to clarify, I am hoping to trailer the boat to and from the launch at season beginning and end with something like this. Then, store it on blocks or some sort of castors in my garage during the Winter. Again, it's only a short distance and just twice a year. I am lakefront. Please give any thoughts on whether this plan will work or I'm gonna have some things to figure out.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=sCX1zbdQvbE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DsCX1zbdQvbE
 
skipperbill said:
Just to clarify, I am hoping to trailer the boat to and from the launch at season beginning and end with something like this. Then, store it on blocks or some sort of castors in my garage during the Winter. Again, it's only a short distance and just twice a year. I am lakefront. Please give any thoughts on whether this plan will work or I'm gonna have some things to figure out.

http://m.youtube.com...h?v=sCX1zbdQvbE
Click to expand...
Sorry, busy morning, and my reading comprehension suffered on the iPad!

I never planned to buy a trailer. I don't have a place to store it or a truck any more myself, so the off lake dealer would do exactly this for service and to launch/retrieve/store each season. They sell a lot of Harris and Bennington tri-toons and when I raised the question about it, he said because of the difficulty handling them they were starting to push trailers for all new sales now. He wrote up all the pricing for the show with a trailer for that reason. They have used their hydraulic center lift yard trailer for transport on them, but when they get them in house for service it still has to come off anyway so they free it up for other boats. Thus the long special 2 forklift gymnastics. It's also much harder to carefully get the ESP on and off a center lift at the launch. He said the Harris is a little easier as there is more space in there. Not saying at all that it can't be done, but there is just more risk. And even good dealers send guys out to do this kind of stuff that often have no clue.

Hope that helps.
 
TomS said:
Sorry, busy morning, and my reading comprehension suffered on the iPad!

I never planned to buy a trailer. I don't have a place to store it or a truck any more myself, so the off lake dealer would do exactly this for service and to launch/retrieve/store each season. They sell a lot of Harris and Bennington tri-toons and when I raised the question about it, he said because of the difficulty handling them they were starting to push trailers for all new sales now. He wrote up all the pricing for the show with a trailer for that reason. They have used their hydraulic center lift yard trailer for transport on them, but when they get them in house for service it still has to come off anyway so they free it up for other boats. Thus the long special 2 forklift gymnastics. It's also much harder to carefully get the ESP on and off a center lift at the launch. He said the Harris is a little easier as there is more space in there. Not saying at all that it can't be done, but there is just more risk. And even good dealers send guys out to do this kind of stuff that often have no clue.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Thanks TomS. I just emailed my dealer to attempt to sort all of this out. But, yes, it's all worth it!
 
Still waiting to hear back from my dealer and starting to get concerned about my overall storage and put-in/out plan falling apart. I would imagine that if the trailer in the link below won't work for the ESP, there's got to be something out there. I went into this whole project based on storing my boat in my garage and not outside and shrinkwrapped. So, what do you think? Would this one work?

http://www.graetzmfg.com/products/Multi%252dToon-Pon%252dtoon--%26-Standard-Lift-Trailers.html
 
Whew! Dealer swears they have one that will work. Problem solved.
 
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