I am looking at storing my Tiger in an unheated building. Winters are long and I would like to have it inside.

Floor space is limited and so I was thinking about standing it up on one hull.

Does anyone have an opinion on this idea? Will it do structural damage to the boat?

I am not looking forward to disassembling the boat as it was a bear to put the tramp on. My tramp feeds into slots in the hull sides.

Appreciate any thoughts.

Cheers
Alan

I don't know the answer, but wonder if you have a space where you could hang it from ropes to the crossbars? Good luck!

I kept my Hobie on the wall of my garage in the winter, using wide straps to spread out the contact area. Here's a photo.


Good luck,
Jack

I've never hung a boat from by garage roof, but I keep all my sails and the like up there.

You could make a cradle forthe boat and then hoist it up into the rafters - Make sure you have a VERY good fail safe so the boat cannot fall down.

I would not store it on it's side for any length of time - this will do the beam bolts no good at all - they are designed to hold the hulls in compression, not shear !

Am thinking that Hanging it is a better option. I like your metal joinery idea Jack.

I think that I will make some sort of a strap similar to yours and join it with two pieces of metal bolted together to hold the webbing. The metal pieces will have a hook or a chain link welded to it and a rope would then go through that to the ceiling and then block and tackle it up and away.

With four attachment points the weight per strap would be fairly low.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Harken has systems you can buy to suspend boats from the ceiling of your garage. They seem pretty expensive, but you might get some ideas from their photos and video of how their systems work.

Go to www.harken.com and click on "Hoisters."

Thanks Mary!

Appreciate the idea. Will factor into my design.

The max lifting load of the Harken systems is 200 lbs. Not enough for your cat.

I have a boat lift in my garage. My garage roof is 2x8's. I have three come-alongs (cable hoists). Use one on each side of the front beam and one on the center of the rear. The one in the rear doesn't take much load since the center of gravity is just behind the front beam. You can hoist to the ceiling by raising them about 6 inches each in sequence. Once the boat is raised completely, I have a set of safety chains that attach to prevent falling if one of the winches fail. With this system, any one of the winches can fail with the boat suspended and it will not fall. In fact, each winch is rated for 2000 lbs. Build the whole system with about $100 in parts from TSC (tractor supply co).

If you only have a 2x4 roof or trusses, you would need to put in a glue-lam or large dimensional lumber support at your front beam. Trusses are not made to hold 400 lbs pull. This could add another $100 to your costs.