Boat Lift Maintenance and Repair in South Florida

We maintain and repair all lift systems, whoever built them: cradle lifts, elevator lifts and PWC lifts. Cables and pulleys, the drive and gearbox, the motor, the cradle and bunks, the switches and controls. Langley does not build or warrant lifts; where a job needs a manufacturer's part we work with the lift maker. We also work on what the lift stands on: the pilings, dock frame and seawall carrying the boat's weight.

Cable life here is short. Marine Construction Magazine puts galvanized at a two-year replacement and stainless at roughly twice that. [marineconstructionmagazine.com]

Hi-Tide, which builds lifts in Fort Pierce, says all cables should be replaced every five years. [hi-tide.com]

Hurricane Boat Lifts agrees with the short end: two years of regular use, wear or no wear. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Use, cable type and care all move the number. Treat two years as the point to look hard at galvanized cable, five as the outside limit, and let the cable's condition decide.

Replace the whole set at once. Hurricane Boat Lifts says to use marine-grade cable rated for the lift's full capacity and replace all cables together, because a failed cable throws its share of the weight onto the ones left and speeds their failure. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Replace on sight for broken strands, kinks, deformities or heavy corrosion. Fraying shows first near the winch with the cradle lowered, and a cable reads clearest on dry land. Internal abrasion and rust can be hidden, so a cable can fail with no visible warning. [marineconstructionmagazine.com]

Rinse the lift and the cables with fresh water after every use, and keep the beams out of the water when the boat is off. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Cables take chain and cable fluid, not grease: grease traps moisture inside the strands. Lubricate the inner strands and the exterior, because they rub against each other whenever the lift runs. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Hi-Tide recommends lubricating every grease fitting on the bearings and pulleys every six months, and rinsing the cable regularly with fresh water and spraying it with a corrosion preventative. [hi-tide.com]

Hurricane Boat Lifts puts pulley greasing at every four to six months and says to keep the gears well greased so they do not seize. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Bunks carry the boat, and where they sit decides whether the hull is supported or punished. Align them with the reinforced stringers near the engine and fuel tanks, and keep the keel centered and clear of the lift beams. [boatlift.com]

Get it wrong and the load concentrates on a few hotspots. Uneven loading can flex the fiberglass, spiderweb the gelcoat, or cause structural delamination over time, and a poorly fitted boat can slide or tilt. [boatlift.com]

Check the boards for unusual bowing, cracking, rot or soft spots, loose hardware, worn carpet or padding, and poor contact with the hull. [tidetamer.com]

A new boat means a bunk reset: the old layout was fitted to the old hull.

Galvanic corrosion needs two metals of different electrical activity, a conductive liquid and a path between them. The more active metal gives up electrons and dissolves. A sacrificial anode, more active still, takes that damage instead of the lift's hardware. [fisheriessupply.com]

ShoreMaster calls anodes a sacrificial metal that corrodes in place of brackets, cables and lift frames, and says to inspect and replace them regularly. [shoremaster.com]

Aluminum is more active in salt water, protects better and lasts longer than zinc; magnesium is a fresh-water anode and corrodes away too fast to be practical in salt. Replace an anode at about half its original size, and inspect yearly regardless. [fisheriessupply.com]

Then walk the hardware: bolts, nuts, cotter pins, piling brackets, bunk hardware, cable clamps, structural connections. [tidetamer.com]

Inspect the gearbox and drive units for alignment, and flat plate drives for loose, frayed or damaged belts, replacing belts as they go. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]

Where a lift sits unused for a stretch, raise it fully out of the water, disconnect the power, rinse off the salt and sediment, cover the motor housing and store the controls dry. [shoremaster.com]

This is the part of lift maintenance that can kill somebody, and it belongs to a licensed electrician.

The National Electrical Code is specific. Section 555.35 requires GFCI protection for boat hoist outlets at docking facilities where the circuit voltage does not exceed 240 volts. Feeder conductors need ground-fault protection tripping at not more than 100 mA, and individual shore power receptacles at not more than 30 mA. [ecmweb.com]

Electric shock drowning is why those rules exist. The Electric Shock Drowning Prevention Association holds that swimming around boats, docks or marinas using AC electrical power should be strictly prohibited, and says to have the boat inspected by an electrician with current ABYC electrical certification. [electricshockdrowning.org]

Have the lift pilings looked at with the dock. FEMA's coastal facilities guidance covers piers and docks: inspect after storms, at regular intervals (its example is every two years), and after any reported damage, underwater for submerged parts. [fema.gov]

A piling that leans or wobbles has lost its bearing. FEMA's answer for a pier is to replace deteriorated piles with new ones designed for the conditions and, where erosion and scour are the cause, to install deeper piles, as replacements or sistered alongside piles still in good condition. [fema.gov]

A piling still firmly embedded but losing section at the waterline is a different job, usually a SnapJacket. FEMA lists jacket encasement, a jacket with a reinforcing layer and a grout infill, as the retrofit for aging timber piles showing decay, and it goes on without taking the lift apart. See also dock piling lifespan. [fema.gov]

Manufacturers differ, and your lift's manual wins over any table.

Hi-Tide's advice is to take the vessel off the lift and park it on dry land. If it has to stay: raise the lift as high as it goes without double wrapping the cable, secure the boat to the lifter beams and the beams to the pilings, turn the power off at the house breaker, clear everything loose off the boat, and make sure it drains. [hi-tide.com]

Afterwards, look at the pilings before the lift. A lift that survived on pilings that moved is not a lift to load. Our guide to dock hurricane repair sets out the order of that inspection.

• Broken strands, a kink, a deformity, or heavy corrosion anywhere on a cable. [marineconstructionmagazine.com]
• A cradle that lifts unevenly, rust or discoloration on a cable, or grinding noises while it runs. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]
• A loose, frayed or damaged belt on a flat plate drive, or gears that sound like they are binding. [hurricaneboatlifts.com]
• The motor labors on a load it used to take easily, or the lift trips its breaker.
• A lift piling that moves, leans or wobbles: replaced or sistered, not patched. [fema.gov]
• Bunks bowed, cracked, rotted, or no longer in proper contact with the hull. [tidetamer.com]
• Anyone swimming near a dock on AC power. Everyone out of the water first, then the electrician. [electricshockdrowning.org]

A misbehaving lift holds thousands of pounds over water. Waiting is not cheaper.