Have you bought your dream new boat and are wondering if it will work with your existing boat lift and dock? Our partner, SteMic Marine Construction, has a client that bought a beautiful new Valhalla Boatworks V-46 center console. Unfortunately, they knew that their existing boat lift did not have the capacity to accommodate the Valhalla. They wanted the perfect boat lift to elevate their boating experience and chose our 40,000 pound Hi-Speed Alumavator boat lift.
The customer needs to have their slip cut-out modified and their new boat lift customized to fit the larger Valhalla. We would like to show you the engineering and design processes IMM Quality Boat Lifts and Stemic Marine Construction use to make sure that our boat lifts work perfectly with your boat and the dock at your home. This post will highlight the collaboration between marine contractor and manufacturer that is critical to obtaining the best results.
The Challenge:
The client’s new Valhalla V-46 boat is too big for their existing boat lift.
The Solution:
IMM Quality Boat Lifts engineers collaborate with SteMic Marine Construction to design and install a new 40,000-pound Hi-Speed Alumavator lift.
Key Steps in the Collaboration:
- Obtaining the Valhalla’s hull drawing to determine pile spacing and bunk support design.
- Analyzing the existing dock layout to recommend optimal pile placement.
- Designing a custom keel beam with stepped support pads to accommodate the Valhalla’s unique hull shape and protect its transducer.
The Takeaway:
- Upgrading a boat lift and dock system requires careful planning and collaboration between a qualified manufacturer and a marine contractor.
- IMM Quality Boat Lifts offers high-capacity lifts and works with partner contractors like SteMic Marine Construction to ensure a perfect fit and functionality.
The first step was to obtain the hull drawing from Valhalla, so that our engineers could see the hull dimensions, center of gravity and hull features of the V-46 to best lay out the pile spacing within the slip and to design a bunk support system.
Figure 1. Hull drawing of the Valhalla V-46 showing center of gravity and hull features.
Stemic sent a layout of the existing dock and asked us to determine if 7 foot or 10 foot spacing would work best.
Figure 2. Layout of the existing dock.
Our engineers examined the dock layout and the hull drawing, determined that 7 foot spacing would work best. We sent Stemic a figure showing the ideal pile layout to assist with their piling installation.
Figure 3. Pile layout drawing showing the boat center of gravity, centered on the lift.
With our extensive experience, our engineers knew that the best way to lift a large boat like the Valhalla is with a keel beam and stanchion pad supports.
However, the Valhalla V-46 has a stepped hull and a long transducer on the keel. These features require additional design work from our engineers. They designed a custom keel beam with stepped support pads to match the stepped hull.
Figure 4. Design of the Stepped Keel Beam Support
Our engineers purposefully designed the keel Beam support such that the hull only makes contact in the front and rear, leaving a middle section open. This open space aligns with the large transducer and was designed to protect the transducer from being crushed.
With the planning complete, all that remained was for SteMic Marine Construction to install the boat lift. One can easily see Stemic’s attention to detail and excellent craftsmanship in all of these images.
So, when you decide that it is time to upgrade your boat and you want to do it right, give our sales team a call at 1-800-545-5603 and they will be able to put you in contact with one of our marine contractor partners.
Happy boating!
