Choosing the Right Boat Lift

If you are a proud owner of a boat, your next important purchase may be a boat lift. This is a necessity if you want to keep your boat in pristine condition through its lifetime. Keeping your boat on a lift also helps keep aquatic life from attaching itself to your hull. There are four types of boat lifts to choose from: free standing, piling mount, shore mounted, and floating.

Free Standing

Free-standing lifts stand by themselves in the water. A free-standing boat lift is not attached to a dock, it stands on the bottom beneath the water. You can typically find manual, hydraulic, or electric operating lifts. Some will lift the boat vertically while others use a cantilevered design, where the boat comes up and forward or back. These work with permanent or floating docks.

Piling Mount

Piling- or dock-mounted lifts are permanent installations. Lighter boats and personal watercrafts can be lifted on one or two pilings, but you will need four pilings if you will be lifting anything substantial. They may need custom placement. Piling-mount lifts can be used with floating docks, but they do need their own pilings.

Shore-Mounted Lifts

Shore-mounted lifts work best on shorelines where the angle is not very steep. You simply drive the boat up onto the shore and raise the motor or stern drive unit.

Floating Boat Lifts

There are two styles of floating boat lifts. One type is submerged when your boat is in use; when you want to store the boat, an electric pump pushes air into the chambers, pushing the water out and lifting your boat out of the water. The second type is similar to a floating dock. It is a hollow piece of plastic with a V-shape entry for the forward keel of the boat.