The engine is attached to the dinghy using another Weaver product called the Weaver Lever. When the dinghy is in the vertical position, the engine is also in the vertical position, a vertical stainless steel rod mounts vertically under the engine to transfer the weight of the engine to the swim platform. There are two other stainless steel rods that connect the dinghy to the transom to provide support when Tug LeeLoo is underway.
The dinghy is lowered into the water using a block and tackle arrangement that is attached to the far side of the dinghy at one end and to the upper deck railing at the other end. Lowering the dinghy is easy since gravity provides an assist. Raising the dinghy is a lot harder, you have to first break the suction between the dinghy and the water and then you have to raise and pivot the dinghy into the vertical position.
Once the dinghy has been lowered into the water, the outboard engine is in the horizontal position. You have to jump into the dinghy, remove a locking pin, and then maneuver the engine into the vertical position. Unfortunately, it takes three hands to do this safely. You have to pull and hold out a latching pin, collapse the toggle mechanism of the engine mount, and physically hold the engine while it tips into the vertical position. Because of the difficulty in tipping the engine down, this Weaver Lever design is often referred to as the "Weaver Cleaver". Also, this design limits you to 2-stroke engines because 4-stroke engines cannot be laid on their sides as the oil in the crankcase will leak out.
The Weaver Lever is a technically functional design. But it's hard to use in pretty much all respects, and not completely safe to use. As a result, we found that we didn't launch the dinghy to explore anchorages or to go ashore when we might otherwise have wanted to do so. And it certainly couldn't be used in an emergency. Something better was needed, even of we had to spend a few boat units make it happen.
After some research, okay a lot of research, we settled on a 500-pound capacity transom davit manufactured by the Nick Jackson Company. This is a small Seattle based company that makes dinghy cranes and davits for many of the boat builders and importers on the west coast. The new davit has "L" shaped arms and carries the dinghy in the horizontal position. And it's winch operated; push a button and the davit arms pivot down to lower the dinghy into the water. Push the other button and the davit arms pivot up to raise the dinghy up out of the water. It's very simple to use.
After a fair amount of thinking and measuring and calculating, we determined that the new davit could be mounted to the swim platform. Indeed, the install was fairy simple (compared to many boat projects). Since the swim platform on Tug LeeLoo is part of the hull, it was possible to get into the swim platform in order to thru bolt the mounting feet for the pivoting davit arms. And since Tug LeeLoo has a stern thruster, 12-volt power was nearby. The only challenge was mounting the hard point (pad eye) on the transom cap rail on which to mount the cable from the winch. By the way, the winch is rated for 4000 pounds and it uses 1/4" Spectra cable with an 8000 pound breaking strength!
Two be able to thru boat the hard point, we cut a round hand hole in the transom wall. We then used a Beckson Plate to cover the hole. By adding a backing plate to the Beckson plate we had a surface on which to mount the connector for the control for the winch. In the end, it was an easy and professional installation (even though we have not seen the invoice from the installation company).
Here are some photos of our new Nick Jackson transom davit.
Dinghy in the Up Position
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