Tide Ride Stairs

Getting ready to take a 840 mile cruise in October and need to buy a Tide Ride Stairs to get on and off the boat when tied to a dock. Have a 48' MY and would like to hear your thoughts. If you own one what do you like or dislike about the one you have.

Good luck with stairs.

Personally I would not consider a boat that did not properly design boarding or dis-embarking. Not a personal criticism of you, just wanting to call out crap designs!

I had a Marquipt set on my Californian 45 MY. Found them used online for a reasonable price. Very high quality.

Marquip has been making them for about fifty years. They have it figured out.

Insequent said:

Good luck with stairs.

Personally I would not consider a boat that did not properly design boarding or dis-embarking. Not a personal criticism of you, just wanting to call out crap designs!

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Maybe the point is that you wouldn't purchase a boat that was difficult for you to board or dis-embark.

Insequent said:

Good luck with stairs.

Personally I would not consider a boat that did not properly design boarding or dis-embarking. Not a personal criticism of you, just wanting to call out crap designs!

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Everyone has their likes and dislikes...

There is allot good to be said about the roominess of aft cabin designs. Yes boarding can be challenging, but once you are aboard, the sheer volume aboard is fantastic.

Calling someone elses boat a "crap design" is probably in poor taste.

ksanders said:

E
Calling someone elses boat a "crap design" is probably in poor taste.

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I disagree. A crap design is obvious when you try to get on or off certain Clorox bottle looking boats.

Insequent said:

Good luck with stairs.

Personally I would not consider a boat that did not properly design boarding or dis-embarking. Not a personal criticism of you, just wanting to call out crap designs!

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I guess that's why OA came out with a Mk II? Fix a crap design? Sorry, "just wanting to call out a crap design"

Capt. Jon said:

I guess that's why OA came out with a Mk II? Fix a crap design? Sorry, "just wanting to call out a crap design"

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Everyone can have an opinion!

Note that the Mk II never achieved the same sales success of the Mark I, as nice as they were. The Mark II was cheaper to build but design changes weren't popular.

As I'm posting, I do owe the OP an apology. He asked a simple question, and my earlier post was not helpful to him.

seasalt007 said:

I disagree. A crap design is obvious when you try to get on or off certain Clorox bottle looking boats.

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hmmm...

And those 'crap design' clorox looking boats...

the ones there seem to be so many of...

yep they're popular because they are a 'crap design'

Not 100% sure what the OP has in mind, but Halvorsen(and maybe others) used to make beautiful and elegant sets of teak stairs extending beside and beyond the hull, dropping to a dock or an adjacent lower height vessel, offering sophisticated "ingress and egress" on their "better" vessels. Presumably the reach required is varied by increasing or decreasing the angle of descent(or ascent I suppose).
It would cost heaps to have them custom made, so if there is something on the market, go for it.

Bruce
The MarQuipt ones look to be very good. Extra height by extra steps. No idea of price, but I suspect they are really worth it, if you have boat that needs them. Cheaper than dealing with injuries for the typically older TF owners.

Insequent said:

Good luck with stairs.

Personally I would not consider a boat that did not properly design boarding or dis-embarking. Not a personal criticism of you, just wanting to call out crap designs!

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The "crap design" is the dock, not the boat. Call out the people who design docks and marinas.

Happy to call out poorly designed docks! The thing is, since the advent of floating walkways/fingers a looong time ago, I don't come across many docks to call out!

Fixed height docks are pretty rare in areas that I frequent. With floating fingers even a small cockpit will mean quite good boat access, albeit at times you might need to be stern-in to the berth.

One exception is my own berth: the berth is 18m but the finger is just 14.4m. Not too big an issue as I have walk around side decks and doors just aft of amidship on both sides. But in general I think that fingers ought to be the full length of the berth, in part to have better positioned cleats on the dock and ease of access to them.

My only other beef with docks is that in the tropics there are always lots of catamarans, but not many marina berths for cats. Newer marinas, or those expanding, ought to increase the number of berths for cats. This was a factor when I chose my boat - where to berth it and ease of boarding are things I considered.

I want to thank everyone for responding to my question especially those members who went off message. I see a lot of that here on the TF. Aft cabin boats do offer lots of space but they do present a problem getting on and off when away from your home dock. I would like to find a used one but so far no luck and since I need it on board and installed by 10/1 it looks like new.

We had both a set of the Marquipt stairs and one of their lightweight removable ladders for our high (6ft) freeboard Hatteras 56MY. We used the very easy to deploy ladder if we were only going to be transient, and the heavier, harder to deploy stairs of going to be moored for awhile. On some fixed docks, only the ladder really worked as the dock was too high and narrow for the stairs. The boat was ingeniously designed with a portlight below each boarding gate so that someone who was somewhat spry could use that as a step if needing to jump on/off quickly. For floating docks, the swim platform was another option but required a bit of a hop, thence up the ladder to the aft deck, Seldom used for that purpose.

I really liked the Marquipt stuff and got pretty handy (after a few pinched fingers and hands)at deploying the stairs, which is easiest done from the dock, but with practice doable from the boat.

Insequent said:

Happy to call out poorly designed docks! The thing is, since the advent of floating walkways/fingers a looong time ago, I don't come across many docks to call out!

Fixed height docks are pretty rare in areas that I frequent..........

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OK, you live in a boating paradise. On the east coast of the USA, fixed docks are still pretty common in areas with less than three feet or so water level variation. On my last cruise, I ended up at a couple docks where climbing off from the flybridge seemed like a possible option.

Insequent said:

..Fixed height docks are pretty rare in areas that I frequent. With floating fingers even a small cockpit will mean quite good boat access, albeit at times you might need to be stern-in to the berth...

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I describe my marina as "rustic"(the ancillary services are not great so it`s no Paradise) but the walkway/fingers are floating. It`s common in NSW state, as well as Insequent`s Queensland state.