by Guest » Sat Oct 20, 2001 9:43 am
I know you guys wrote this a long time ago, but I just noticed it. I have rigged lifting bridles for both my old 1983 DS II, and my new (older) 1968 DSI (confused yet?) anyway, on the DS 2 we actually put in two large eyebolts in the deck, inside the chainplates. These eyebolts were run through the deck and through an 18in. 2X6 with large fender washers on both the deck and the underside of the eyebolt. For the back I ran them to the large cleats in the stern quarters. It worked ok, for where we are, the lake we hoist onto is only about 1-2 feet below the parking lot level, so it wasn't on the hoist for long. When I went to Sarasota with that boat, and was hoisting down 5-6 feet, the stress on the deck made me a bit nervous. So with the new (older) boat, we tried something new. We instead were able to fit a small (I don't remember the size, sorry)shackle pin through the shroud and the chainplate. The Shackle pin takes the place of the clevis pin that holds the shroud to the chainplate. The matching shackle is what I hook my bridle to. The boat already had rings mounted in the stern for hoisting, These rings are mounted with wooden backing, and work fine too. This set up works better, although it was kind of a trick to find the right sized shackle that was small enough to fit into the shroud and chainplate, and still be big enough to fit the hoist hooks into.
J.P. Clowes (jpclowes-at-hotmail.com)