hydraulic swim platform

i am 83 years old. i have always owned motor boats, except the last 5 years since when i sold my last boat, i thought well this is it..am getting too old..I LIED... i just bought a 2002 Carver 444 cpmy. But i am really too old to get up on the swim platform from the water, i cant do it. So i thought if i have installed a hydraulic swim platform , i can use it as a dinghy cradle and as a lift to get to the water and out of it by riding on it on its way down and up..any better ideas?

Are you able to do ladders and stairs in a dirt home?

I think that model has a pull-out ladder on the swim platform? Is that correct?

So the challenge is that you can't reach up and deploy the swim ladder?

Or is it that you can't get your feet onto the ladder when it is in the water?

Or is it that you can get up and onto the ladder in the water, but can't get up off of the ladder onto the swim step?

Or am I misremembering the boat?

It seems like it might be a simpler plan to make the boarding process more user friendly vs motorized. For example, a rope or strap to help pull down the ladder? Or handrails on the edge of and/or top of the swimstep that you can hold onto while stepping up? Or a rope you can use to pull yourself up, perhaps with a pully or compound pulleys to provide mechanical advantage to make it much easier? Etc? Etc? Etc?

Boarding via a swim ladder can probably be made as easy as stepping up onto a short ladder or step-up stool at home, but not necessarily a lot easier than that, unless, as you suggest, it becomes more complex.

At 83 what else are you going to spend your money on? Just do it before it’s to late.

virgilio guma said:

i am 83 years old. i have always owned motor boats, except the last 5 years since when i sold my last boat, i thought well this is it..am getting too old..I LIED... i just bought a 2002 Carver 444 cpmy. But i am really too old to get up on the swim platform from the water, i cant do it. So i thought if i have installed a hydraulic swim platform , i can use it as a dinghy cradle and as a lift to get to the water and out of it by riding on it on its way down and up..any better ideas?

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A hydraulic platform might work for you, but they come with issues. For example, you can't leave it down in the water; it needs to be lifted after you've launched your dinghy, Or yourself, in this case. (Or at least its that way with ours.) It'd maybe be possible if you have somebody on board to work it for you, or some foolproof way to get your hands on the remote while you're still in the water.

Plus... there's a boatload of "stuff" in the water all the time, susceptible to corrosion, barnacles, and so forth...

And they cost a bazillion dollars. And they cost another bazillion when you have to repair it for whatever reason.

I could imagine instead maybe a davit system that gives you a "rope ladder" of sorts to ride up and down on. If you have somebody on board to work it for you, or some foolproof way to get your hands on the remote while you're still in the water.

-Chris

Self deployment us why they mount the ladder under the swim platform.
Of course you still need some sort of handhold to assist, rope, grab bar, perhaps a disappear cleat or 2.

Hydraulic swim platform.... a bunch of aluminum parts that need to be protected

virgilio guma said:

i am 83 years old. i have always owned motor boats, except the last 5 years since when i sold my last boat, i thought well this is it..am getting too old..I LIED... i just bought a 2002 Carver 444 cpmy. But i am really too old to get up on the swim platform from the water, i cant do it. So i thought if i have installed a hydraulic swim platform , i can use it as a dinghy cradle and as a lift to get to the water and out of it by riding on it on its way down and up..any better ideas?

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Welcome, BTW.

It might be simpler on a 44 footer to rig a powered bos'n chair to lift you
and fit a conventional davit setup for the dinghy. Probably much cheaper, too.
If I was living nearby I would look at what you have and see what might work.
Good luck and keep us posted with your progress!

KnotYet said:

Welcome, BTW.

It might be simpler on a 44 footer to rig a powered bos'n chair to lift you
and fit a conventional davit setup for the dinghy. Probably much cheaper, too.
If I was living nearby I would look at what you have and see what might work.
Good luck and keep us posted with your progress!

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A bosun's chair and a dinghy crane might work.

Best access for me has always been the open type dive ladders. Easier to get feet onto. of course they are not self deploying. But they would be mounted directly on the edge of the swim platform and removed when not in use. Just don't dive into the water without installing the ladder. Never mind why I say that.

I do believe we are all looking for worse case. "You go over the boat and no one else is on board."
A. a MOB engine kill switch. We can all agree. they exist.
B. how to get back on board unassisted, correct?

I've got a hydraulic platform on our EB47. Works great. Even has a wireless remote. Appears to be mainly of steel construction, not aluminum. Painted with ablative, iirc. Never gives me any trouble and doesn't collect any excessive growth during the course of our seasons on the Chesapeake. We use it every time we're out, as the dinghy is kept there on fixed chocks. Also handy for helping friend's older dogs to get in/out of the water.

1st owners had it put on, and that's the one listed as an Eastbay 49 in this gallery: https://www.tntlifts.com/boat-gallery.html

I those pix you you'll see there's a ladder mounted under the port side of the swim platform. Easy to pull it out if you're already in the water. There's a spring-pin that holds it into the frame. Deploying it from above is a bit more work, with having to reach over/down to pull out that pin. The pin is fixed to an arm that provides the spring force to hold it into place (hard to describe in text). Stowing is easy, just fold it back up and slide it into the frame, the pin is designed to latch automatically. The open slats of the swim platform allow for a decent hand-hold to aid climbing up. I have bad knees/back so I typically climb up, sit on the platform and then stand. Not terribly graceful, but the days of worrying about that have long passed.

Looks great, isn't it just what the gentleman enquired about ?
What's with all the negativity? or are you all secretly desirous.

bogranjac1 said:

Looks great, isn't it just what the gentleman enquired about ?
What's with all the negativity? or are you all secretly desirous.

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There's a contingent of grouchy b4stards here (and elsewhere online) that seem bent on whinging about anything/everything that exceeds their limited scope of understanding/worldview. Nothing new, sad to say.

wkearney99 said:

There's a contingent of grouchy b4stards here (and elsewhere online) that seem bent on whinging about anything/everything that exceeds their limited scope of understanding/worldview. Nothing new, sad to say.

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One afternoon while instructing sailing, we passed by a moored boat with a couple guys standing on a hydraulic swim platform which was only a couple inches below the water. One of my students couldn't believe her eyes and asked me how come it was so shallow right in a mooring field, she didn't believe me that Jesus and Peter were just showing off so I had to explain the lifting swim platform to her.

This was in your neck of the woods, just outside of ego alley.

Gdavid said:

...she didn't believe me that Jesus and Peter were just showing off so I had to explain the lifting swim platform to her.

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Heh, that's a hilarious response. Let me guess, fellow parochial school survivor?

wkearney99 said:

Let me guess, fellow parochial school survivor?

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Actually not, public schools through college, perhaps that's why organized religion doesn't scare me now.

My husband is 85. We have a fixed swim step with a fold down ladder. The issue was hand holds. I rigged a looped line to a cleat midship on the swim step and now he can utilize the ladder and pull himself up onto the swim step. He uses this method when getting out of the kayak or small dinghy. Best of luck to you!

We have a fold down duckboard about 2 ft off the water and the boat had no ladder when we got her.

As a temporary measure until I decided what the best setup was I used an old 8ft aluminium ladder I had lying around and bolted a timber bracket off the sides to sit flat on the duckboard and set the angle into the water.

The top of the ladder gets tied to the rails
And the bottom several rungs are under water making it easy to get out even with dive gear on.

That temporary ladder has been in use for 6 years now with no intentions of improving it.

I have no idea if it would fit in your boat but I have been in a number of dive boats with diver lifts. Think a man cage on a forklift. Often they are winch operated and lift all the running gear out of the water when not in use.

You swim up to it, stand up in the water, press a button and hey presto you're up at deck level and step onboard.

STB said:

Are you able to do ladders and stairs in a dirt home?

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This would seem the easiest low tech solution. Boat steps and ladders typically go from an inch below the water to deck level which can make them very difficult to board and step off of. I prefer steps over ladders as they can go deep into the water, hand rails or maypoles can go high enough to give hand holds right up to stepping on the deck and step height and gradient can be minimised to suit the owner. Generally speaking the wider the better to aid stability during choppy conditions

GoneDiving said:

I have no idea if it would fit in your boat but I have been in a number of dive boats with diver lifts. Think a man cage on a forklift. Often they are winch operated and lift all the running gear out of the water when not in use.

You swim up to it, stand up in the water, press a button and hey presto you're up at deck level and step onboard.

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Similar to

Simi 60 said:

Similar to

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That's the Rolls Royce version for men and equipment. I was talking something similar to this (if a ladder or steps don't suffice) for man access only:

I bought a set of these Easy Up handles. Best thing ever …

https://www.waketowerpro.com/index.cfm?p=item_detail&productid=498