Lifting a San Juan off a Trailer

By Stephen Jensen:

The Lifting of Charmed Juan

The first sunny Sunday of January and I got going with my plan on lifting Charmed Juan off the trailer for some badly needed bottom maintenance. Last year I built the stands that the boat will rest on once it was lifted. Now I had to build the lift. I started at around 11:00 am and finished at 4:00 Now I have a lot of work to do sanding and fairing the bottom.

Here are the pictures.

This is the cross beam that goes in the companion way. It's 6' long and has a 2" cutaway over 20" on each end.

Here is the lift assembled. The top cross beams are two 2x8's screwed together.

The trailer moved into position.

The cross beam inside the cabin. Closed cell foam is padding the wood to the ceiling and a rope is keeping the beam held forward so in case the bow drops down, the beam won't slide aft.

My helpers are doing the lifting while I am taking the pictures. The bow actually was high, not low.

The boat fully up, Keel down and stands in place. About 70% of the weight is on the stands and 30% still on the center lift.

The photo below shows how to bypass the whole lifting process and remove the space under the keel instead. Not advised.