Swim ladder and dingy davits

[wowzer52]

Ok Aaron, you too Tuck, and anyone else that is interested, here are some pics of my answer to the weak swim ladder and dingy mounts. This system picks up the strength of all the slats in the swim board. The swim ladder mounting strips are 1/8"x 2" stainless flat bar and the dingy davit mounting strips are 1/8" x 3" stainless flat bar cut to length. Any metal fabrication shop has this in stock and most will cut any lengths you want and drill any holes for you. I used stainless 1/4" bolts with nylock nuts. I can loosen the nuts and move these mounts to fit any dingy or fish box or BBQ or whatever and no extra holes drilled in the swim board. If you like you can make one of each of these mounts out of cardboard marking where the holes need to be drilled and take it to a metal shop then all you have to do is mount them, quick and easy, or make them yourself. If you drill them yourself use a drill press and drill them fast and hard. If you try to use a hand drill or drill too slowly the soft stainless will gum up the drill bit and you'll go through ten drill bits just to get through one hole. If you have any questions I'll be more than happy to help.

[aaronbocknek]

thanks for the great pics. i want to put a ladder in a similar location but i cannot find a metal shop here in the baltimore/middle river area that will even work with me on this. any of you guys in the area have any suggestions?
thanks.
aaron

[koviak]

Aaron, Try Metal Benders on Pulaski Hwy. (at city line before Monument street split)

[RWS]

Wow!

Nice work on the swim platform reinforcements.

I was so impressed I saved yourposted pix to my projects file.

Did you do anything to the existing tubular support brackets that attach to the transom?

I repaired a couple of cracked welds on mine and replaced the wooden backing plates with starboard, however even with the system you have developed, with my dink at 85 lbs and the engine at 65 lbs, it's quite a bit of weight out there bouncing around at the end of a "lever".

Our dink has an airfloor and stores under the port gunnel, the outboard goes into the lazarette.

I'm using a removable St Croix mini crane with brackets mounted on the transom to make deploying the engine easier, but there's still the issue of what to do with the dink underway.

For now we can deploy or breakdown in about 40 minutes, but then we have a saltwater wet dink to deal with.

Did you reinforce your brackets? Any pix?

NICE JOB!

THANKS FOR SHARING

RWS

[wowzer52]

My 9ft Zodiac doesn't weigh much and my brackets are all in excellent condition so I didn't have to do any extra reinforcement. I try to keep things simple and functional without it looking like it came out of a starwars movie and with a lightweight, self contained 3 1/2 hp merc there is no extra gas tank and it's easy to handle on deck and it goes fast enough for getting to shore and exploring. I like being able to drop the dink and go in 60 seconds.

[Trojan26NC]

I like the way you have your swim ladder attached. I might try to modify what you have so I can distrube the weight of a person with double tanks on the ladder.

[bob wilkins]

I don't know the name of the shop, but they are on backriver neck and beach roads

Bob W

[ready123]

Nice job... I have Hurley Davits and a ladder that mounts ontop of the platform.... what I did was to put 1/4" hardened Ally plate underneath the platform for the full width to spread the load. I did drill the platform for the holdown bolts as I wanted to ensure there could be no possible movement of the dinghy davit system.
My boat motor combination was a little heavy in my estimation (250 lbs) .... this vacation I had to deal with 4'/6' swells in Georgian Bay and everything stayed attached, even in a following sea.
Glad I ran with the drain plug out as I did get some spray into the dinghy which lays horizontal with the Yamaha 4 stroke 20 HP motor.