Ooops! Iroquois, we have a problem!

I don't live anywhere near Houston so I thought I'd substitute Iroquois and you'd still get the reference to the Apollo 13 incident. Flipping this hull over has got to be one of the most challenging parts of the whole project. At least the most worrisome. I've seen it done on the Internet, read about it in a few blogs and viewed every available video on Youtube. I know it can be done and I've never attempted anything like this before so I think I'm being over anxious. If we screw this up and wreck the hull it's game over. I'll be lucky to liquidate everything I've bought for the boat for pennies on what we paid for it so the risk is not trivial.

Anywho, last night I was going over the plan to flip this thing over. I even watched my own animation a half dozen times. This one, you might remember it from a previous posting.

Making it happen safely relies on a bit of eyeball engineering, overbuilt lifting gear and carefully coordinated pulling & feeding out of the cables attached to the turning rig. Getting it flipped onto its side is pretty straight forward. The main electric winch lifts up on the frame as the hand winch pulls the bottom of the frame sideways.

Once the hull is on its side all is well. The pulling stops. This is where it gets a bit tricky and the part I totally missed in understanding how this will all actually work.

In order to get the hull to continue to roll I have to feed out line from the electric winch while the hand winch continues to pull the hull sideways. That's fine but there's nothing there to lift the side starting the second half of the flip. That's what I missed. A second pull to lift the hull again. I can't use the main electric winch as it's being used to control the roll and prevent the hull from falling to the ground.

So I've had to add another hoist of some sort to lift the hull on the second part of the flip. I don't have another electric winch so had to rig up something else. I have a puller type of thing that I bought years ago probably with this exact purpose in mind. It doesn't have a long pull, about 6' but is capable of pulling 6000 lbs.

This should be enough pull to get the hull past the tipping point where gravity will do the rest and the electric winch will control the lowering of the hull to the ground. It's not an eloquent solution but I believe it will work.

Bracing straps have been rigged to the top of the Gin Pole. You can see them clearly in this pic. The large one in the middle will exit the side of the shed and be attached to a ground anchor in my neighbors back yard. This is the one that will take most of the strain from the flip.

I hope that's the end of rigging on the Gin Pole. Back to cleanup under the boat.

Standby....

Gin Pole Rigging Part 3

Had to reverse the lower u-bolt that's there for the retaining straps. Swapped it around to the backside of the Gin Pole. I knew this was gonna happen but never thought about it when I rigged it the first time. Also added a 'kick stand' to the pole. It'll help distribute the load to the ground and act as a dead stop should the turning frame slide too far towards the pole.

The addition of the kick stand really stiffened up the Gin Pole a whole lot more. It's solid now. I've got permission from my neighbor to sink a 36" ground anchor into his backyard on flip day. This will allow me to tether the top of the Gin Pole to the ground stake with a 30' X 20,000lb tow strap. Once the boat goes past 45 degs I'll have to start letting out line to lower it down and this will put the most strain on the pole. That strain will be transferred to the towing strap into the ground anchor.

Testing the electric winch and remote control.

Power to pull the boat sideways as it's being turned will be an 800 lb hand winch.

The pull will run parallel to the bottom of the rolling frame so I ran the wire down the backside of the Gin Pole where it'll pass through a small fairlead (came with the winch) and out holes drilled in the pole & kick stand. Should be almost effortless.

I haven't bolted it on yet, have to get a couple smaller lag bolts first.

About 5 yrs ago or so we were cruising the local flea market when I spotted this. $15 if I remember correctly.

Just an old bucket of bolts you say. Yup, good guess, that's what it is. I knew someday I'd need a a bunch of bolts like this to build the rolling frames. How's that for foresight?

Still cleaning up under the boat so I can put together the turning frames. I had a lotta stuff stored under there! No idea where I'm going to put it all. Eeeks!

Standby.....

I have no vise

Well actually I had one. It broke. Just like the old saying 'if it breaks, make it stronger, if it's not broke, try harder.'  Well I tried hard and it broke.  ;-)

I think we paid $20 for this at an auction about 10 yrs ago. It sat in the garden shed for a few years until we started building the boat. It's seen plenty of use since then. Luckily for me Mastercraft (Canadian Tire store brand) tools (not all of them) have a life time warranty. Just dropped it on the counter and they replaced it with this.

It's not nearly as heavy duty and doesn't have pipe jaws on the inside but it might last the duration of the boat project, then again, it might not! ;-)

The carpal tunnel syndrome has been kicking up something wicked today. I was up half the night in agony. I tried sleeping without the wrist braces and maybe that was part of the problem. I'll put them back on tonight to see if they make a difference.

Mounted the 2500 lb electric winch to the Gin Pole this morning.

Installation is pretty straight forward. Built a little shelf to hold my trolling motor battery and it was all set to go. Well almost, the batteries that came in the remote were dead so they had to be replaced. I gotta say it works pretty cool with the remote. I can control the winch from anywhere in the shed. Great Father's day gift from the ole' Mummy. Thank you dear!

I've got two dead batteries (prob 70 lbs) hanging from the winch now. The Gin Pole doesn't budge a hair. I'm still going to brace it and will have to get another shorter 6 X 6 tomorrow. If the hands are a little better I'll get to assembling the rolling frames too.

Standby....

Lot easier than I thought

Raising the Gin Pole by myself was a lot easier than I thought it would be. An extra pair of hands to run the winch would have helped but as it turned out wasn't really necessary.

Wrapped the pole in an old shipping blanket so it wouldn't scratch the hull. The lead weight on the cable got wrapped as well and some old carpet to protect the hull from the wire.

Up she goes. About a foot & half each time. I had to run around the boat to check every so often till I could see the pole & weight was free of the hull.

One more lil' pull and over the chine it goes.

Firmly seated in the hole. Not as far down as I would have liked but it'll be Ok.

Ooops, Houston, we have a problem. There are two stays that run across the shed. They keep the shed from bowing out too far when I lift a weight with the winch. The pole won't clear them. You can just barely make them out in this pic.

I removed the stay and up she went without a hitch.

I had to lop off the top 10" or so to get it up to the angle I wanted. It gives me a few more inches of clearance between the boat side and the pole. The lift will be almost perfectly vertical which I think is good.

I stuck this piece on below the floor level thinking if the pole wants to lay down this will help with it pushing against the compacted dirt possibly spreading out the load over a larger area.

One of the smartest things I ever did was rig the electric winch into the ridge of the shed. I can't tell you how many times I've used it during this project. I've flipped all the long panels with it which would have been virtually impossible to do without the winch.

Certainly something to consider if you're contemplating going down this route. The one I have is just a cheapo 1500 lb 12 V winch from Canadian Tire. It's certainly earned it's keep over the years.

Lifting and pulling power will come from a 2500 lb 12 V electric winch and an 800 lb trailer winch. Both will mount to directly to the Gin Pole. The electric winch has a remote control which will allow me to run it within 20 feet. The trailer winch as you know is manually powered. It will pull the bottom of the boat sideways as we lift the hull allowing it to rotate on the rolling frames.

The Project Manager stopped in today to overlook the workin's! His look sort of reminds me of some astonishment as if he's saying: "You filled in the hole before letting me use it?"  :-)

Have to make a run to the hardware store for some bolts, nuts & washers to mount up all this stuff. Grocery store is on the agenda as well. I haven't made the ole' Mummy a nice BBQ dinner in a while so that's gotta happen today too.


Standby.....

Gin Pole Rigging

Started rigging the Gin Pole this morning.

The purpose of the Gin Pole is to transfer the load to the ground. Compressive strength for a 6" X 6" PT is approx. 26000 lbs. Buckling pressure is approx. 1285 PSI. It will be plenty strong enough to take the load of the boat as it's flipped. I estimate the weight of the hull is about 1100 lbs and at no time will it actually be picked up off the ground, it will slide on on the frame that will be built around the hull.

I used 2 X 1/2" U-Bolts. Couldn't definitively find their load carrying capacity but I figure their breaking strength at somewhere in the 3-4000 lb range. The backing plates are 1/8" mild steel plate.

The shackle is 1/2" and rated for about 4000 lbs. The only pulley block I could find at Princess Auto is one rated for about 850 lbs. We'll do a lift test on it and if it's not good enough I'll upgrade to a better block. Pulling force will come from a 2500 lb 12V electric winch I'll mount to the pole. Sideways pulling of the boat frame as it's rolled will be with a 600 lb hand winch.

The upper u-bolt, shackle and pulley will carry the load. The lower one is for the ratchet straps that will hold it vertical. There's another ratchet strap that'll pass through this u-bolt and exit the side of the shed to a ground anchor.

I suspect I'll also brace the Gin Pole on the inside with some lumber to help distribute the load to the ground and keep the pole upright.

This afternoon I've got to move the pole out of the way and start to bring in the lumber for the rolling frames.

Standby...