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Many of us who work on boats under Costco shelters are grateful for this time of year, when we finally get some warmer, drier days that make restoration work easier. While we have two boat projects inside the shop, three others are currently being worked on outside, under canopies.
While Costco (and other) shelters are thought to be pretty wimpy affairs, subject to blowing away in winter storms, I wanted to share a tip on how you can use your cheap canopy to help flip a project boat upside down to work on the bottom, or rightside up when you're done with the bottom work.
This week I've been working on a Reinell Jetflite that Doug Griffith owned until recently. (It now belongs to Bill Anderson of Iowa, but that's another story.) In any case, after removing the deck mold, replacing the transom, stringers and cockpit floor, we needed to flip the hull upside down to repair and paint the bottom.
How to rotate the boat inside the seemingly fragile canopy?
After staring at the situation, we decided that the canopy's tubular-steel framework could actually support the boat--but only if we tied a half-inch line across the inside of the canopy from one side to the other, securing the line at joints where the side legs meet the roof poles. By securing the line tightly across at that point, we turned the roof structure into an amazingly strong truss that could support quite a lot of weight.....well, at least the weight of a 15-foot runabout.
After buttressing strength of the canopy frame, we suspended a one-ton Harbor Freight chainfall (one of the best things they sell) from the canopy's peak, attaching the hoist to a 3/4-inch bolt we ran through the hull's drain hole...made more secure with large washers inside and out.
The bow was lifted by a crude wooden gantry we put together last year--designed to just barely fit inside a Costco canopy. (We could have used another of the shelter's own tubular frames to support the second chainfall over the bow, but the gantry was handy...and we could drag it into just the right position for the lift. To keep the gantry from tipping, we tied it off to my Jeep on the far end.)
So, all I had to do was lift the hull straight up about 3-1/2 feet, then roll it over by hand (swiveling at the transom and bow eye), and then lower the chainfalls, dropping the hull gently onto styrofoam blocks with old boat cushions on top. The whole operation was done solo inside of 30 minutes, including setup.
No harm to the shelter, and certainly no harm to the boat.
Hopefully, the attached photos--which show turning the boat back rightside-up after primering the bottom--help explain the setup and general process.
- Marty
While Costco (and other) shelters are thought to be pretty wimpy affairs, subject to blowing away in winter storms, I wanted to share a tip on how you can use your cheap canopy to help flip a project boat upside down to work on the bottom, or rightside up when you're done with the bottom work.
This week I've been working on a Reinell Jetflite that Doug Griffith owned until recently. (It now belongs to Bill Anderson of Iowa, but that's another story.) In any case, after removing the deck mold, replacing the transom, stringers and cockpit floor, we needed to flip the hull upside down to repair and paint the bottom.
How to rotate the boat inside the seemingly fragile canopy?
After staring at the situation, we decided that the canopy's tubular-steel framework could actually support the boat--but only if we tied a half-inch line across the inside of the canopy from one side to the other, securing the line at joints where the side legs meet the roof poles. By securing the line tightly across at that point, we turned the roof structure into an amazingly strong truss that could support quite a lot of weight.....well, at least the weight of a 15-foot runabout.
After buttressing strength of the canopy frame, we suspended a one-ton Harbor Freight chainfall (one of the best things they sell) from the canopy's peak, attaching the hoist to a 3/4-inch bolt we ran through the hull's drain hole...made more secure with large washers inside and out.
The bow was lifted by a crude wooden gantry we put together last year--designed to just barely fit inside a Costco canopy. (We could have used another of the shelter's own tubular frames to support the second chainfall over the bow, but the gantry was handy...and we could drag it into just the right position for the lift. To keep the gantry from tipping, we tied it off to my Jeep on the far end.)
So, all I had to do was lift the hull straight up about 3-1/2 feet, then roll it over by hand (swiveling at the transom and bow eye), and then lower the chainfalls, dropping the hull gently onto styrofoam blocks with old boat cushions on top. The whole operation was done solo inside of 30 minutes, including setup.
No harm to the shelter, and certainly no harm to the boat.
Hopefully, the attached photos--which show turning the boat back rightside-up after primering the bottom--help explain the setup and general process.
- Marty
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