A boat lift is one of the few waterfront purchases where getting the specification slightly wrong produces a failure years later that looks like a manufacturing defect. It usually is not. It is usually arithmetic.
Sizing: the number almost everyone gets wrong
Manufacturers publish dry weight. Dry weight is the boat and nothing else — no fuel, no water, no batteries, no gear, no canvas.
Your actual working load is:
- Dry weight from the manufacturer
- + fuel — roughly 6.1 lb per gallon. A 60-gallon tank is another 366 lb.
- + fresh water — 8.34 lb per gallon if you have tanks
- + batteries — 40–70 lb each, and there are often two or three
- + canvas, covers and bimini
- + gear — anchors, chain, safety equipment, watersports kit, coolers, the accumulated contents of every locker
- + canopy load if the lift carries one
That total commonly runs 20–30% above dry weight, and owners routinely underestimate it. Then you want real headroom above the total — not a lift rated to precisely your working load.
An undersized lift does not fail immediately. It wears cables, gearboxes and winches faster than it should, and then fails in year six in a way that feels like bad luck.
The three types
| Cantilever | Vertical | Hydraulic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mechanism | Scissor geometry lifts the cradle in an arc | Cradle rises straight up on posts | Hydraulic rams raise the cradle |
| Depth needed | Shallow to moderate | Less depth for the same lift height | Moderate |
| Typical capacity | Lighter boats | Wide range, including heavy | Heavy and very heavy |
| Moving parts in water | Several | Several | Fewest |
| Speed & noise | Moderate | Moderate | Fast and quiet |
| Up-front cost | Lowest | Middle | Highest |
| Best for | Smaller boats, value-focused | The Lake George workhorse | Large hulls, minimum maintenance |
Cantilever
A scissor mechanism that raises the cradle through an arc. Simple, economical and effective for smaller boats in shallow to moderate depth. The arc means the boat moves horizontally as well as vertically, which matters in a tight slip.
Vertical
The cradle travels straight up on posts. The key advantage is that it achieves full lift height in less water depth than a cantilever needs, and it handles heavier boats comfortably. On much of Lake George this is the default recommendation.
Hydraulic
Fewest moving parts in the water, fast, quiet, and the right answer for large or heavy hulls. Also the choice for owners who want the least seasonal maintenance — there is simply less mechanism sitting in cold water all season. It costs the most up front.
What Lake George does to the decision
Depth changes fast
This lake goes from two feet of sand to twenty feet of ledge within a boat length in plenty of places. Depth at your slip is not a single number — it is a profile, and the lift has to work across the whole of it including the winter drawdown. We measure rather than assume.
The bottom is often rock
Lift legs need to sit on something stable and stay there. On a ledge or boulder bottom that can require pads, cribbing or a purpose-built base rather than simply setting the lift down. A lift sitting unevenly on rock will shift, and a shifted lift misaligns its cradle.
Most lifts come out for winter
The lake freezes in roughly seven winters out of ten and ice will destroy a lift left standing in a shallow slip. Removal, shore storage and spring reinstallation is an annual cycle for most installations. Some deep-water or boathouse-protected setups can overwinter with the cradle raised, but treat that as a case-by-case judgement rather than an assumption.
Putting a lift inside an existing boathouse
One of the better upgrades available to an older boathouse, and one of the ones most likely to need structural work first.
Three constraints govern it:
- Headroom to the tie beams — the boat plus the cradle plus lift travel has to fit under the structure.
- Slip width — lift legs and guide posts need room that the original builder may not have allowed for.
- What is underneath. A boathouse that has never carried a lift is about to receive concentrated point loads it was not designed for. If the cribs are tired, this is what finds out.
We survey all three before ordering anything. Discovering the third one after the lift arrives is an expensive sequence.
Seasonal service is not optional here
Cables and gearboxes are wear items, and cold water accelerates everything.
- Spring: commission the lift, inspect cables end to end, check pulleys and gearbox, verify the cradle geometry against the hull, and run it with the boat present.
- Mid-season: a visual check of cables. Lake George water is clear enough that this is genuinely easy.
- Autumn: remove, wash, inspect, store.
A frayed cable found in a spring inspection is a cheap part. The same cable found when it parts with a boat on the lift is a very different day.
If your lift fails with a boat on it
Stop using it immediately. Do not attempt repairs unless you are qualified, and do not get underneath a loaded lift. Call a professional repair service — we can be reached on (518) 260-9878.
What we install
We are an authorized RGC Marine Boat Lifts installer, which means we specify, order, install and warranty-register their equipment directly. Practically, that gives you a lift matched to your hull rather than to a price point, parts availability years down the line, and an installer who has set enough of these on this lake to know how a given model behaves in a slip that drops several feet over the winter.
Send us your boat's make, model and year and we will run the load calculation with you.
Lake George Docks
We design, permit and build docks, boathouses, cribs and shoreline structures across all 32 miles of Lake George, New York — and repair what the lake does to them. Questions about your own shoreline? Call (518) 260-9878 or send us the details.
