Portable Hard Stand for Trailer Sailers

In this video I design and build a portable lifting hardstand for my RL28 trailer sailer. Based around 4 high lift jacks, it uses 2 x 3m "H" beams commonly used in landscape retaining walls for lifting beams. Stands provide a guide for these beams and stability for the boat. The system can lift to a maximum of 1.2m off the ground and can lower within 200mm of the ground. The beams have a failure load of 2200kg with weight at the centre when lifting at their ends giving more than 100% safety factor with a load of around 600 to 1000kg per beam. High lift jacks are rated to 3000kg with a load on each of 300 to 500kg giving a more than 300% safety factor. Old high tensile u bolts were used as movable safety pins during lifting and lowering in case of lifting mechanism failure. The stands stood rock solid with the 1400kg boat at 1.2m in the air during a 40 knot blow. At $1150 to build they cost a bit but paid for themselves during a 4 week maintenance on the boat with the convenience of not having to travel to a boat yard each day to work on the boat. Even though designed for the RL28, the system would be easily adaptable to many trailer sailers by using different hull support blocks to suit the hull shape. Music: "Courante 1st Cello Suite - Bach" (freemusicpublicdomain.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/