Lowering and raising the stern steps, a better way? - 2011

 They seem like they may bee too far out for a decent angle for lifting the steps up. Now to see if this will work or do we go back to engineering some other solution?
December 2011  - Currently At Marina Cortez Harbor Island, San Diego, CA

 The reason for this exercise is to determine the usability of a block and tackle for raising the stern steps while in a dingy. Not all the way but a foot or two out of the water would be fine. The reason for this is the steps get beat up while still in the water. Not just sitting there but if you depart in the dingy and a passing wake comes by the steps will flog up and down and bank on their hinges. If a fetch picks up while we are away same thing and so on. To stop this some have tried to attach a fender to them so they float but this works only so well. Others have tried different solutions. None we like that much. We also have tried to raise the steps from the cockpit with a line. This is not easy. They are full of water and they are at a bad angle. There is not a place above to attaché any blocks to that would hold the steps while they are being pulled up.

 That brings us to our solution we hope. We have the advantage of some real nice strong dingy davits we installed. The Kato Island davits are just sitting there and seem in a good position but are they?

 We had an extra motor lift from Gohaner and remove the block and tackle form it for use here.

We bought a 2” PCV pipe for a temporary pole across the davits.

Kato Marine Island Davits cross piece for our Island Davits

 We have not purchased the 1 ½ inch stainless steel(SS) cross support from Kato Marine yet as we have not purchased our dinghy yet and we would like to know the lifting points so the cross pole can be sized correctly.

We first tried to lower the steps from the cockpit which is easy to do without  any thing else but a line so they do not bang into the water. Getting them out is the problem. It became apparent that the PVC pipe was at a really great spot for angle. It could come in to the boat a bit if anything and the SS 1 1/2 pipe would be in a few inches more making it even more perfect!

This video is of us lowering the steps and raising them from the cockpit.

 We would not necessarily lower them from the cock pit because we would then need to get around the tackle  Like we said it is not a problem to lower them with a piece of line.

The work flow:

We would most likely lower the stern steps with the line. 

Unhook the one end of the block and tackle from the boat.

Then board the dingy.

Now slide the block and tackle to the middle of the 1 ½ SS cross davit support.

Connect the tackle to the steps. There will be a floating small piece of line tied to the steps with an eye in it to hook the tackle to.

Raise the steps.

Pull line on cam cleat. This makes it easy to tie off.

Now tie line off to cleat on tackle.

Dinghy off.

On returning lower steps and move tackle over to side of davits.

On the way up the steps move tackle back to center and connect to floating line.

Board boat and pull up steps.

Have not tried the boarding boat from dinghy part yet but the work flow could be modified to fit the situation.

 We will add another block possibly and a cam cleat and a cleat.

Thus is still a work in progress. The point here is that this is very doable and will make a great solution to retrieving the steps and securing them while out in the dinghy.  

Raising the stern steps from dinghy test.