The ice melted before I could share the boat cradle’s new life and adventures. The cradle has already had quite a few adventures. Looking at the pictures, I can’t help but think it’s had more excitement than I have during the entire pandemic! 😀
I had tried to sell the boat cradle a couple of summers ago because our boat club requires to use boat stands or a folding marina yacht cradle, instead of a 200-kilogram behemoth. A fixed cradle, without any adjustment options, in addition to its weight, hasn’t been the easiest thing to sell. I was about to sell it for scrap, as metal prices were pretty good. But finding the right buyer was a real pain.
No matter how clearly I tried to explain in the ad that the cradle was completely fixed, without any adjustment possibilities, I was tired of answering questions like, “Yes, it’s fixed, you can’t adjust it. You can’t fold it. You can’t disassemble it. No, you can’t adjust its stands either…” And when the sales didn’t happen fast enough, the boat cradle was back in the middle of the boat yard’s cradle pile for the summer…
So, my expectations weren’t high when a woman called last fall and asked if it could be disassembled. Sigh. Yeah, you can’t adjust it, and you can’t disassemble it. “But could you cut it into pieces with an angle grinder and weld it back together?” – OH! Well, yes! “I’ll call my husband, he’s a metalworker but he doesn’t speak Finnish. When could he come and take a look?”
We made an appointment and the guy came to see it. The boat cradle looked good. The location is a bit tricky, though, as the cradle is right there in the middle of the pile. You can come and pick it up after the fall maintenance when we can move it to a better spot. – No problem! He didn’t even blink before handing me the money! Well, there you go! That’s how it’s done!
We figured out how to get power to the grinder. Some time later the guy came with a big angle grinder and cut the cradle into pieces. And it didn’t take long at all! The cradle itself was in good condition in the end. The surface looked a bit rusty, but only on the surface. The metal was otherwise solid and thick enough to easily handle a much smaller boat for decades to come.
The pieces were loaded onto a trailer and off they went. He promised to send me a picture when he had welded the cradle back together.
A week later, I got a message. It looked good! The boat cradle has a new life. 🙂
-Jussi
