San Juan 21 Class Association

We just picked up our first sailboat, a 1981 San Juan 21, hull/sail number 2421, named Dawntreader by the previous owner. We plan to spend a month or so cleaning the boat, repairing the trailer, and repairing the keel and keel cable. The boat will be stored at the Brown's Creek Marina in Guntersville, AL. We live in Huntsville, AL.
If anyone has advice on how to lift the boat to remove or re-install the keel, I would love to hear it. The boat is currently in our driveway. I'm hoping someone has figured out an easier/cheaper way to lift it.
I'm really looking forward to spending time on the boat this summer.

Rick and Denise Nelson
SJ21 #2421

Here is what i did:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=230

happy to elaborate if needed. A couple of updates to that original post: i would make the rear cross member the same as the front to allow for more flexibility while painting. i said in the initial post i would feel confident putting it up high enough to lower the keel all the way down while still attached to the boat. nix that. you can definitely get the keel in and out, but i was nervous getting it more than about 4.5 feet in the air for obvious reasons. I think it could be done with enough corss bracing, but the jack becomes an issue to as you go higher and have to put blocks under it.

anyway, good luck...

Here's how most in Fleet 1 do it... I've made some improvements to stephen's design though. Instead of the top support beam resting on 2x4's screwed into the uprights I bought a longer cross beam and put it up on top of the uprights themselves. Also I have the cross beam screwed into the "fingers" that are screwed into the uprights as once the boat's off the trailer I need to park my camper under this to do work on it, and the "angle" 2x4's stephen used, get in the way.

http://www.sj21fleet1.org/tips-and-tric ... -a-trailer

And here is a picture of my current setup, cropped to meet file size restrictions. She's still on the cradle for some keel filling and repairing, it's amazing how quickly "grit" falling into the keel well can ground gouges into the keel:( I went with a more solid "boat cradle" type of cradle as opposed to Stephen's use of the straps. Mizu sits in my cradle much firmer without the wiggling you get with the straps. It's just a few 4x4's with some 2x4's added in to keep everything inline. The ground isn't perfectly even where it sits, so I added some cinders on one side to keep the cradle fairly level.
Later
C

It looks like I have some carpentry work ahead of me.
I'm a bit nervous about lifting the entire boat from the cabin hatch. Has anyone damaged their boat this way?
Seeing the different methods used here made me think about using an engine lift, or cherry picker, to lift each end a few inches at a time. I'll think on that while I build a cradle. Thanks for the ideas.
Rick

Depending on your trailer, this lift might work for ya.

These boats were lifted at the factory with the beam inside the cabin like the Fleet 1 lift... And, so far, just about every boat that is active with Fleet 1 has been lifted in this manner to weight them. Personally, I think if the cabin top broke being lifted this way, there were likely some other repairs that needed to be done to make that boat safe to sail. I'd check for delamination of the cabin to determine if it's safe to lift it or not.

Later
C