Red Neck Ski Lift

rinker312

I know this is not Rinker related, but I am sure there are a few of you who have a jet ski sitting in the slip next to your cruiser.  This may interest you, if you are cheap like I am.  I did not like my ski sitting in the water, and I hated pulling it back and forth to the river all the time.  The cost of a lift, or even a floating dock is friggen crazy, so I have been working to perfect this over the last two years.  First attempt was a complete failure, but since then I have made modifications about 6 times and I think I finally have it nailed.  I have this thing setup with a remote control.  So I drive on to the lift, hit the button, turns on the blower and lifts me out of the water, then just step off onto the dock. 

Let me know your thoughts.

MarkB

Very smart! What do you do to lower it? 

rinker312

When I step off after lifting it, I simply close a ball valve, you can see it in the last pic, and then turn off the blower.  Then to take off, I just open up the valve and the lift lowers and the ski slides right off.

aero3113

Very nice!

Black_Diamond

Nice job!

TikiHut2

Gotta love a problem solver with the tools and tenacity to back it up. Nicely done.
Mike

jreau

I must be missing something. At first I thought you were filling the tanks up with water to lower it and then pumping the water out to float it but you mentioned a blower. Are you filling the tanks up with water or air? I love the idea and would like to try it for my Zodiac. Could you please explain in more detail for a slow person like me?

nhsd

It appears that the blower is pushing the water out of the barrels (how much air pressure does that blower create?). Closing the seacock is keeping the air in (not allowing water into the barrels) and opening the seacock allows the weight of the ski and lift to force water to displace the air and sink the lift. I am not clear on how the openings for water to come in/go out are let into the barrels though.

rinker312

See the plumbing on top of the barrels in the third pic. This is used to blow air into the barrels. You can also see the valve used to keep the air in. In The bottom of the barrels where you cannot see are some large holes. These holes let the water into the barrels. So we are forcing the water out the bottom with air to lift the ski. The fifth pic is the blower that the valve is connected to. I bought the blower off of a company online. Something like ozark mtn boat lift parts or something. It was cheap like 100 bucks. I've read of others using a vacuum motor. It is not pressure that you need to do the lifting it is more volume needed. This setup lifts the ski with passengers in a few seconds. It is working so well that I am just leaving the ski on the lift over the winter. If you want to get started on one let me know and I can give you my personal email so that I can send you some of the specifics that you need to know to make it work. It took me about 5 attempts to get this right so I want to save anyone who wants to do this some of the grief that I went through