tilt up boat rack design help needed.

Hi macbushy, we have a Kanga Big Red camper trailer & boat rack & highly recommend it's simple activation & design, you can see them on their web site.
http://www.kangacampertrailers.com.au/

cheers Simon

When I had my trailer built I included a pneumatic boat rack with the intention of using my 3.7m Allycraft on a future trio around OZ. I put an aluminium rack on it and happily carried bikes, tarps, tables etc for years. Before the trip I sat the boat on its keel and tried to lift it with the 4 x150 N struts to do the work. Could not move it more than a few inches above the ground. Back to square one, replaced the struts with bigger ones and the opposite happened. Could not keep it on the ground. The boat is not a car topper and has some weight. The configuration just will not work. The solution was to replace the pneumatic struts with hydraulic struts one on each end. These are driven by an eBay bought enerpac pump. It is a one handed operation pump the boat to vertical neutral where it has no weight. Move it across the vertical and let the jack down. The reverse happens to put the boat on the gound. The best feature is you don't have to worry about what weight you have on the rack. Send me your email address and I will sent some photos.