CC 
Lift · 05 · Boat Lift Installation
Your boat belongs above the water
A boat that lives on a lift stays cleaner, runs better and skips the bottom paint bill. We size the lift to your boat's true wet weight, set it on dedicated pilings and hand it over tested, with the controls where you want them.
Salt water does not clock out
A boat tied in the water is a boat at work, even when you are not on it. Growth starts on the hull almost immediately. The slime line comes back a week after you scrub it. Bottom paint turns into a recurring bill, running gear collects corrosion, and every wake down the canal works the boat against its lines and fenders.
Then there is storm season, when a boat floating on lines is a boat depending on those lines. Sitting up in a cradle, it is out of the water, out of the growth, and higher above whatever the canal decides to do.
A lift solves all of that, but only if it is sized and set right. It is a machine holding your boat over salt water, and what decides how it holds up is unglamorous: whether it was sized to what your boat actually weighs, and whether it stands on pilings driven for the job. The owner sizes and quotes it personally, and his crew drives those pilings from the barge.
Every job covers
Sizing from real wet weight
We size from what your boat weighs loaded and ready to run, hull, motors, full fuel, water and gear, plus margin. Not the brochure number off the spec sheet.
Dedicated lift pilings
A lift gets its own pilings, driven from the barge straight and deep. It does not hang off dock pilings that were never set to carry a boat in the air.
Cradle, bunks and guide posts
Bunks set to your hull so the load lands where the boat is strong, and guide posts so you drive in clean when there is wind or current pushing you around.
Motors, wiring and controls
Motors and switches mounted where you actually want to stand, wired and cycled before we call it finished.
Beams and salt-rated hardware
Beams, cables and fasteners specified for salt water and set square, because a lift that runs out of square chews through its own cables.
Walkthrough on day one
The owner runs the lift with you, boat in the cradle, until raising and lowering it is something you do without thinking.
From wet weight to first lift
Talk boats at the seawall
The owner meets you at the water, free. You give him the boat and how you load it; he tells you what your canal, seawall and layout can take.
Size and plan
Capacity, beam layout and piling positions get set around your boat and your canal, and we walk you through the permit steps before anything is ordered.
Drive and set
Dedicated pilings go in from the barge. Beams, motors, cables and cradle follow, set square and checked as they go.
Test under load
Your boat goes in the cradle and the lift cycles under real weight before we hand it over. Bunks adjusted, guide posts set, controls where you want them.
Real work, real water
Every photo is our own work on SW Florida water. Click any of them to look closer.
Rated 5.0, 98 reviews
“Hiring Alex and his crew was a great decision! First and foremost they showed up when they said they would and perhaps even more important, finished when they said they would. ... I only wish I'd hired Alex from the start.”Vince Kotlarz · Google
The brochure weight is not your boat
Every boat has a dry weight printed on a spec sheet somewhere, and nobody has ever gone boating in a dry boat. By the time you idle out of the canal you are carrying the hull, the motors, a full tank of fuel, fresh water, batteries, the cooler, the anchor, the tackle, and all the gear that lives aboard and never comes off. That is the weight the lift picks up, every time, in salt air.
So we size from the true wet weight with margin on top of it, and we do that before anything is ordered. Undersizing is the mistake that does not announce itself on install day. It shows up later as strained cables, a motor that groans, and a lift wearing out early. The margin adds a little at the quote. Skipping it costs the whole lift.
| Hull | The boat itself, wet, with hardware, tower, top and every add-on that was never on the original spec sheet. |
|---|---|
| Motors | Outboards, brackets and running gear. Repower to something heavier and the lift math changes right along with it. |
| Fuel and water | A full tank is dead weight the brochure figure never counted, and you will sit on the lift full far more often than empty. |
| Gear | Batteries, anchor, tackle, coolers, tubes, the dock cart that lives in the bow. It all rides up with the boat. |
| Margin | Room on top of the whole total, so the lift works comfortably instead of running at its limit on every single cycle. |
Boat Lift Installation questions
Often paired with this
Piling Installation
A lift stands on its own pilings. Straight, deep and driven from the barge is the whole reason it holds your boat in the air.
See the service Related serviceBoat Lift Repair & Service
A lift is a machine living in salt air. Cables, bushings and motors want eyes on them yearly, and we service what we install.
See the service Related serviceFree Dock Inspections
Not sure your dock can take a lift, or what size your boat needs? The free inspection settles both at the seawall.
See the serviceLet us get your boat up and dry
Tell us the boat and your canal. The owner will come out and look at the seawall, free, then size the lift to what your boat actually weighs.
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