Since most of my sailing is solo, I am looking for a way to avoid dragging the Prindle on and off the beach each time. I have an aluminum cantilever type boat lift for a small PWC that I envision customizing and am looking for help.

Immediate problems:

The vertical supports that the winch attach to are the same width of the hulls so interference there.

The bunks and adjacent supports are too narrow for the hulls and don't provide any of the lift that I need.

Popeyez has a great set of plans to custom make a bunk out of PVC but I am trying to use what I have. Has anyone found a successful way to rearrange a standard lift to work for their cat?

if you want to store your cat off the beach all you need is some metal pipe and a couple feet of pvc to fit over the aluminum. The racks look like 2 "H"s. The cross bar is a couple of inches wider than the boat and the vertical posts should stick about 4 feet into the bottom and be tall enough so the the boat is sitting about a foor higher than the largest waves. Then screw a large earth anchor into the bottom infront of the windward rack, and attatch a tow strap between the front of the tramp and the screw anchor to prevent it from taking off during a storm. A picture of the rack is pictured in the link. The un-rigged hobie is sitting on one of them. http://www.facebook.com/p…61&l=81845&id=1367010064

I have a Hobie 18 and have the same type of question. Have you found any answers to your lift question? I have my sights on a used pontoon lift (which is wide enough). I am trying to figure a way to lift the boat by the cross bars v. the pontoons without damaging the dolphin catchers. If you have any insight, it would be appreciated.

The original response to my question included pictures but they were too far away to figure anything out. They are no longer availabe so the search continues.

I have a cantilever type of lift. The cross bars are too high on my Prindle to lift the boat using them. The lift is the same with as the boat so I am thinking side saddle?

There are great pics of custom cradles but I am hoping that with all of the users on this site, someone has rerigged a typical boat lift.

When I was shopping for my beachcat, I looked at a Hobie 18 that lived on a boat lift. There were huge soft spots on the decks (6"x2') aft of the daggerboard slots.
I reckon this was caused by people stepping on the decks when boarding the boat on the lift. Since the lift was a solid base, eventually the hull gave up. This is just my theory based on examining one messed up boat.
If you keep you boat on a lift, I would caution to watch where people step on and off the boat when it is elevated.