Everglades Dock and Lift
Everglades
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Lift Repair

What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field

SW Florida, FL

A running gallery of the stuff we get called out to look at — rusted-through lift beams, collapsed cradles, cables spooled like a bird's nest, blown-out piling wraps and rotted-out dock decking. None of it happened overnight. Every one of these started as a small, cheap fix and got ignored until it was a big, expensive one. If any of this looks like something on your property, call us before it fails on your boat.

What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 1
Boat lift failure with the boat still on it — front cradle beam has given way and the hull is sagging port-side into the water. This is what a corroded, un-serviced lift eventually does. Cable, motor and structural inspections exist so this doesn't happen to you.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 2
Lift bracket rusted straight through — the steel plate that anchors the cradle to the beam has a fist-sized hole eaten out of it by salt. At this point the fastener is holding on to nothing. Replace before the next lift cycle.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 3
Galvanized lift beam eaten through around the bolt holes. Once the coating is gone and the base metal is pitted this bad, the beam is scrap — no amount of paint saves it.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 4
Boat lift cradle completely collapsed and hanging underwater. Bent aluminum, twisted crossmembers, cables slack. Almost always the end of a long ignored cable-and-beam problem, not a sudden event.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 5
Cable jumped the sheave and chewed a groove into the aluminum cradle end. Once the cable is running on bare aluminum instead of the pulley, every lift cycle is cutting the beam and fraying the cable.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 6
Corroded aluminum lift beam pulled off the dock next to the customer's jet skis — pitted, thinned and no longer safe to carry weight. Time for new beams, not another patch.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 7
Someone else's cable job — new cable dumped onto the gable drum in a tangled bird's nest instead of spooled tight in even wraps. This lift will pull crooked, fray cable fast and eventually let go under load. Correct spooling is not optional.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 8
Cheap piling wrap installed with no top cap and no fasteners at the bottom — split down the side, blown open at the waterline and burned by the sun. Wrap that isn't sealed top and bottom is just decoration; the worms get in around it and keep eating the piling.
What Not To Let Happen — Real Failures From The Field — photo 9
Dock stringer and decking gap along the seawall — rot chewed through the framing under the composite deck and the boards are pulling away from the seawall. Trip hazard now, structural failure later.
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