Modified Method Single Point Lift

Over the summer I moved Voila from a wet mooring in Squamish, BC to the hardstand at West Vancouver Yacht Club where she is now on a trailer. Club policy is that owners operate the hoist themselves to keep the club free of any liabilities, and the lift is set up only for a single point lift. Pre race and post race launching requires efficiency because there are about a dozen boats all wanting to get in or out, and there is no temporary holding space.

To facilitate speed, efficiency, and safety, I worked out a system with no modifications to the boat that allow a single point lift using a standard nylon lifting strap and two fixed length pieces of 1/4" amsteel with loops on each end. The only trick was to get the two retaining pieces of amsteel the exact correct length.

As those of you who use the single point lift system on the Laser know, you conventionally run a sheet from the main lifting strap around the halyard winch once, and then down onto the primary where you are required to adjust that strap by winching so that the lifting strap from the keel lines up center with the inspection port. Of course, the downward lead-in angle from the deck winch to the primary is all wrong and tries to ride-over and make a mess. You must quite vigorously step on the sheet and winch at the same time. It's fussy, slow, and requires the utmost care.

In this revised method, I simply place the loops of the two retaining lines over the primary lifting strap, then wrap them twice around the halyard winch and loop them over the primaries used only as fixed point anchors. Fix the lift hook and lift. No winching required.

To make these two lines of the exact correct length, I put the boat in the water under the hoist during a non busy period and was all hooked up in the conventional way with the sheets, etc., but I had the amsteel lines fixed around the nylon lifting strap via their spliced loop in one end, the other end being not yet spliced (no loop). I then wrapped the amsteel lines twice around the halyard winch and led the loose end around the primary and marked the line forward of the winch where I wanted the end of the rope to enter the braid for splicing. I used a conventional single braid splice and sent the fid well down inside the line and exited about 14" from where it entered and led the end out and removed the fid. With a good length of tail hanging out, I was able to adjust the splice just by slipping it inside the single braid until the length was perfect simply by de-tensioning and pulling on the tail.

To get the length perfect, I eased the hoist down to slacken the line and tightened my new splice on one side a bit, leaving the opposite side fixed with the regular sheet, but removing the sheet from the side I was working on. I then gently raised the hoist to see if the nylon strap centered on the port. If it did not, I let it down again and then slipped the splice a bit to shorten the line and repeated the process until I could lift the boat using the sheet on one side, and my new fixed length line on the other and have the nylon strap hit center. When this was done, I repeated the process on the other side, removing the sheet and started working to get the other amsteel line correct. When both lines were exactly right, I double lock-stitched the splices.

Now on our way in, we tie the boom to one side to clear the chainbox on the hoist, etc, and then set up the the lifting lines by leading the nylon strap through the port, looping the two retaining line loops over its end and suspend the nylon lifting strap above the coach top by tying it to the boom with bungee or a sail tie. This holds everything up and ready for the hook. The two retaining lines go twice around the coach top winch, and then just loop over the primary. Finished. The hook goes onto the nylon strap and when it goes into tension on the lift, the strap aligns dead center on the port. Once hooked up the person comes off the boat and we lift. As it happens, through the side window of the coach top, we can visually see the lifting strap's alignment with the center of the port, which is perfect every time.

I choose to wrap the halyard winch twice, because the amsteel has a lower friction coefficient than double braid, and I feel more comfortable spreading the load a bit between the halyard winch and the primary. The system works very well and I thought it worth sharing.