Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. was founded in 1990 and today is recognized as the innovator in the boat lift industry. As one of the major manufacturers, no other company can match our technical expertise:

• We have the largest full time engineering staff of any boatlift company.
• Our manufacturing processes are the finest in the industry and we use State-of-the-art equipment including numerous CNC (computer numerically controlled) machines.
• Our modern manufacturing plant is second to none.
• We are a company on the move. We have added innovative new lift products to our traditional shafted beam and elevator lines, and more are on the way.
• We simply build the best products.

It's all in our name. Quality Boat Lifts, Inc.

PRODUCT HISTORY OF THE BOAT LIFT INDUSTRY

Overview:

Before the mid 1970's boats were typically lifted with a pair of davits. A fore and an aft cable, which are connected to lifting eyes on the watercraft, characterize these crane like structures, which are mounted to a piling or set in the ground above a sea wall. Boaters find davits difficult to use, as the distance between connecting points on the boat make them difficult for one person to operate. While davits are used today for lifting smaller watercraft in some unique situations, their position as the industry standard has been largely replaced by lifts that support the boat on bunk boards connected to a lifting platform or cradle system.

A major breakthrough in boatlift design occurred in the 1980's. Aluminum was introduced as a structural material to replace galvanized steel. Although slightly more expensive than steel, its long-term appearance and corrosion resistance make it a superior alternative. Today the best lifts are made from aluminum. It has steadily supplanted galvanized steel, as consumers have become knowledgeable enough to recognize is superiority.

Over the last 25 years or so a number of techniques for lifting a cradle system have been developed and tried. Hydraulic cylinders, pneumatic flotation, and wound cables have been explored in various configurations. Hydraulic efforts have been found to be costly, difficult to protect from saltwater corrosion, and susceptible to oil leakage. They also are relatively expensive.

Floating lifts (lifting a boat with another boat) have experienced three major drawbacks. First, the port to starboard center of gravity of the combined system is raised significantly above water, requiring much additional width to be added to the floating lift to prevent rollover. Thus valuable marina space is lost. Second, while the boat is elevated free of barnacles and other water contaminants, the lift is not and it must be periodically cleaned. Third, the combined system is exposed to the heaving of wave and tidal action, as it floats on the surface of the water. Nevertheless floating lifts may be the only solution in very deep fresh water, protected from wind and wave action.

Piling or sea wall mounted cable drawn lifts have become the choice in coastal waters. They lift the boat free of the water in minimal space at an affordable price. Of course, a number of ingenious cable routing and structural techniques have been explored. Through trial and error, experiencing success and failure, three successful designs have evolved over the years. They are: shafted beam lifts, beamless lifts, and elevator lifts.

Shafted Beam Lifts:

Alum-A-Vator and Alum-A-Hoist are the shafted beam lifts manufactured by Quality Boat Lifts, Inc.

At the present time the most popular design for a cable drawn lift is the shafted beam design. It was developed about 30 years ago, and it has become the industry standard. It can be recognized by its two parallel beams, between which the boat is located prior to lifting. These beams each contain a motor driven shaft through their length on which 4 cables are wound. Cables are connected to the four corners of the boat cradle, which is raised or lowered by clockwise or counter clockwise rotation of the shaft. Shafted beam lifts are typically mounted on four pilings, although very large lifts of this design have four motors and four shafted beams, and are supported by eight pilings.

Some of the product features of Alum-A-Vator and Alum-A-Hoist are:

• A chain drive with the drive sprocket solidly welded to the shaft. No shear prone bolts are employed in this connection. Furthermore, the mechanical forgiveness of a chain connection to the drive shaft has an inherent flexibility, thus minimizing stress as the total lift system moves and strains under heavy loads.
• Chains insure a positive direct drive from the motor to the shaft. Boatlifts are considered heavy equipment. Chains are the drive of choice in logging and earth moving equipment, wherever speeds need not be shifted. They are less apt to break than a gear is to shear teeth.
• All of our lifts are made of 6061-T6 corrosion resistant aluminum.

Elevator Lifts:

During the 1980's a lift need developed on waterfronts, where outboard pilings were not allowed, or where bottom conditions made the driving of pilings difficult. Thus the elevator was born. It utilizes a cable drawn platform with wheels that ride on a vertical or near vertical beam. This beam rests on the bottom and supports the lift, thereby eliminating the need for pilings. Elevators do require sacrificial zinc anodes to prevent corrosion. These anodes, which are periodically replaced, prevent the partially submerged vertical metallic beams from decomposition in seawater.

Our elevators feature large winders for extended cable life.

Beamless Lifts:

SPEEDLIFT is the Quality Boat Lift, Inc. beamless lift line.

Popular in the mid Atlantic region, beamless lifts have steadily increased their market share. They have a cable-hung platform supported at each piling. As their name suggest, these lifts do not have winders supported by an upper beam.

Rather the winders are supported by a piling and the cables run through the lifting beams to the opposing piling. Their increase in market acceptance stems from the unobstructed access a consumer has to his boat. Beamless lifts are typically supported by four pilings, although Quality Boat Lift, Inc. has developed a lower priced three piling model.

SPEEDLIFT is our beamless lift. As we developed it in the late 1990's we had as an objective to address the three major historic engineering problems that have remained unsolved since the industry's inception.

• First, all currently manufactured boatlifts are inefficient. Power losses take place in their gearboxes, because all use relatively inefficient worm reducers of one sort or another. These friction losses translate to higher amperage and/or voltage input. A moderate sized boatlift requires two 3/4 horsepower motors (a total of 1.5) to barely lift 10,000 pounds. Furthermore, in order to keep total horsepower to 1.5 it is necessary to lift at an extremely slow speed. The result is that no reasonably sized boatlift can operate from a single standard household plug receptacle.
• Second, electrical wiring headaches are a problem. A licensed electrician is required on boatlift installations because the higher power requirements dictate hard wiring, and because wires often must be run below water. Furthermore, reversible motors require careful attention to electrical connections to prevent internal damage. Hard wire hookups can cost the boatlift owner hundreds, even more than a thousand dollars during lift installation.
• Third, cable life is short because it is wound on a small diameter. The tight wraps result in high bending stresses on the stainless steel cable, because the wires are forced to stretch over the small radius of the winder. Larger winders are not used because the higher inch pounds of radial torque transferred back through the power train to the motor would require adding significantly more expense in gear reductions. Thus to keep costs down manufacturers of boatlifts make a tradeoff with cable life. For example, the average cable will withstand less than 300 "up and down" cycles on a fully loaded lift. Even though 300 cycles represents a long time interval (a few years) in the life of a boatlift, cables do require periodic maintenance and must be monitored by the lift owner. Small winders also create problems of cable management. Cable is bent so tightly that it will uncoil if unloaded - for example, if the lift is bottomed. Snarls and uncoiling are common and further reduce cable life.

SPEEDLIFT utilizes what we call "low amp technology". In other words Quality Boat Lifts, Inc., has solved the efficiency problem. It is a beamless design, although it differs from other beamless lifts in three important ways.

• First, it is about 90% efficient, as it has no worm drive in its power train. This patented drive enables a 10,000-pound boat to be lifted with one horsepower at a rate three times faster than worm driven lifts. But most important the product comes pre-wired, and it can be plugged into a 20- amp, 110-volt household circuit. We call it "plug and play" and in most installations the need for an electrician is minimal.
• Second, large winders are used, thus greatly increasing cable life. Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. has tested the product at full load and have achieved cable lives long enough to survive the life of the lift itself.
• Third, cable management is much easier with our large winders, because the tendency for the cable to uncoil is dramatically lower. Large winders minimize the spring effect in the cable, allowing it to be held against the winders with rubber rollers. It cannot backlash or uncoil.

Our "plug and play" beamless lift is a breakthrough product as significant as the use of aluminum for boatlift construction.

Yacht Lifts:

SUPERLIFT is the Quality Boat Lift, Inc. Yacht lift line.

Another breakthrough product, our SUPERLIFT line of industrial grade giants sets a new standard of performance, safety, and reliability for very large lifts. Introduced in 2000, these lifts operate very much like shafted beam lifts, as they employ a cable hung platform, supported at each corner by two pilings. They use very large winders and extra pliable cable to insure long life.

Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. manufactures these lifts in sizes of 75,000, 100,000, and 140,000 pounds. All use cycloidal drives, which are very efficient, thereby reducing horsepower and electrical requirements. An industrial grade product, these lifts are designed to withstand repeated cycling.

SUPERLIFT is a world class yacht lift. We recognize that owners of multi-million dollar watercraft want to protect their investment, and they expect their lift to perform as well and as safely as a boat yard dry dock. This is a "No Compromises" design. For example:

• Its efficient industrial duty cycloidal gear reducers, the finest gear reducers made, are not undersized. No inefficient worm gearing is employed in the drive system.
• Cable is wound on large winders. This provides a 15:1 or greater drum to cable diameter ratio to insure long cable life.
• Limp fine wire cable like that used in public elevators and ski lifts is used. We do not use aircraft control cable, which is woven with fewer larger strands to minimize stretch, and which must be routed over very large sheaves to minimize work hardening.
• Sealed ball bearings are used throughout the winder and drive system. We never use plastic bearings.

These and other unique features provide peace of mind. Moreover, efficiency translates to lift speed. Our SUPERLIFT will elevate a yacht at speeds many times faster then conventional lifts minimizing the time necessary for the captain to hold the boat in lift position.

Conclusion:

Like many technologies, watercraft lifts have taken a technological leap since Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. entered the market place and continue to improve today. Only customer driven, technology based organizations like Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. are prepared to lead this industry into the next millennium. When you are looking for a watercraft lift, look for Quality! Quality Boat Lifts, Inc. It's all in our name.