Episode 1
It has taken a couple of years for the Easy-Lift Outboard Davit / Hoist to reach its current form so for anyone who is interested in exactly how that happened, this is the story of
It may take a while to complete but here we go.
It was a flotilla holiday in Greece largely spent manhandling
a heavy out board motor on and off the inflatable, at the seemingly constant
request of my children that did it. What I needed, and presumably other yachties
who are not professional weight lifters also would find useful, was a simple, solution to the
problem.
What irked me most was the fact that I had opted to pay £160 for this monster of an outboard for the two weeks and got very little use out of it, such was the hassle involved. I tried investing at various Greek chandlers to create a Micky Mouse harness to use with the boom, which helped a bit, but the main problem of manhandling a 25kg+ weight with a bent back was still there
Originally I took this shot in the hope of shaming the flotilla company who shall remain nameless ( since they are all guilty ) into refunding the £160 . . . . . . I suspect you can imagine how successful that was !
Preferably I needed a system which I could operate single handed as that's how I often seemed to be when there were more important things to be done by the rest of the crew, like sunbathing.
What form exactly the solution could take was what I returned to off and on for several months. I have spent the last 7 years restoring a 47 footer with a vast and often ( to start with at least ) leaking teak deck and the last thing I wanted to do was put any more holes in it so number one priority was portability.
