Last year, I moved to a new home where, for the first time, I have a garage. The extra sheltered space got me thinking about buying a small skiff for rowing and sailing, but my new one-and-a-half-car garage posed some storage limitations. The overhead door would prevent me from hanging a boat directly above the car. There is floor space off to the side of the parking area, but my family needs that for bicycles and storage. I began to scheme about a way to lift the boat off the car and slide it sideways to hang over the storage area. What came to mind was a scaled-down version of the overhead bridge cranes used in factories to move heavy materials around. The lifting mechanism is attached to a beam that has a pair of ball-bearing trolleys attached on top. The trolleys run within the slot of the Unistrut channel fixed to the ceiling joists. Once the boat is raised to the desired height, the ball-bearing wheels allow it to be manually pushed sideways along the channel.
Photographs by the author
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Great idea. I would love to know where you purchased your hardware. Mail order or local? I am in the Seattle area also.
Pretty much all the hardware should be easily available at most any BigBox store if you look around or ask a clerk. Sheaves might best be obtained from a boating supply house like Duckworks or similar, or if you’re handy they can be made from UHMW polyethylene or Delrin sheet stock, available from on-line plastics supply sources.
I bought a Harken-made lifting rig for my Waterlust canoe which “sleeps” off-season hoisted above my garage half so I can pull my Subaru in at night. The Harken’s fixed in place, doesn’t move the boat sideways, but makes an easy job of “putting things to bed” when when the time comes.
SP Clark is right. Most of the materials are available locally. The unistrut track is in the electrical department next to the conduit. There are several brands of the strut that are pretty much the same dimensions. I mailordered sheaves from a boating supply and the trolleys were ordered off a major internet retailer’s website. There are a few variations of these trolleys so it is good to consider your fastening system before ordering.
Very slick! A DYI bridge crane for home garage. Thanks for sharing idea and details.
If I understand this system correctly, you have to be able to drive into the garage with the boat on top of the car, lift the boat and then move it sideways which means the channels must be further into the garage than the overhead door tracks and the door opener power head. That means a fairly high door, resulting in long door tracks and a long garage.
My garage is 20′ deep. The 7′ tall garage door rides on tracks that extend 8′ back from the front of the garage. George Hume is right that when I lift the boat off the car, I cannot immediately move it to the side. I first have to work it backward on the beam-blocks. When I am ready to move it sideways, I make sure it is at a height that can clear the garage door tracks. I wait to lift it to its full height until it clears the tracks.