Lifting cockpit by hand and force transfer of the engines?

[Kris]

I noticed some more serious damage on the cockpit that will likely require lifting the cockpit to access.

Has anyone tried this by hand? obviously after removing the outboard engines.

I doesn't appear that heavy by the looks of it and is only held down by a lashing on both sides.

I need to cut out a piece of rotten wood where apparently some screws corroded and got ripped out and that part is in the gap between the cockpit side and the hull, so at the very least I would need to lift the cockpit up on one side temporarily.

But this also got me thinking... it seems like this lashing is not designed for force transfer from the engines to the two hulls, but rather the entire cockpit seems to push against the beam in from of it. This seems to put considerable stress on both the cockpit and this beam, and especially the cockpit doesn't really look like it is designed to be a structural element like that.

Am I missing something how this is supposed to work?

[Robert]

I built a new cockpit box last year. I needed a second pair of hands to move it, and we used the boatyard’s telehandler to install it. Jacking up the box and blocking it should be possible. Lifting by hand would be a stretch for me, but I’m a skinny weakling.

There are no lashings in the plans—likely they are a previous owner’s addition to keep the box from shifting around or bouncing up in waves.

Indeed, engine thrust is transferred from the box to the beam through the rails. There has been no problem with that on my boat. Strong construction methods are in order here, especially thick fillets and biaxial glass tape on the plywood joints.

[Kris]

I had a closer look at it again and I think I can reach it without lifting the cockpit.

And yes the lashing seems custom made, but it is probably a good idea to tie down the cockpit anyways.

I guess without lifting the cockpit it isn't really possible to do some structural enhancements to it, but for now it doesn't seem too bad. You can definitely see it pushing into the front beam a bit though... might be because of the dual outboard engine design that I have.

[Kris]

So coming back to this... I was able to fix the damage last year without lifting it, but the main problem is actually something else.

The way the two outboard engines are mounted under the cockpit causes the cockpit to rock back and forth when changing the direction of the thrust during outmaneuvers in the harbor. This is especially noticeable when reversing both engines to brake, which lifts the front of the cockpit considerably.

The previous owner tried to fix this by adding some custom strap-down as well as a metal L bar that extends below the main beams at the front and the back of the cockpit.

The custom straps to tie down the cockpit seem to be insufficiently strong and lack the lever to hold down the cockpit, but the L bars seem to have done the job initially, but failed fairly soon and damaged the points where the bolts holding them connected to the cockpit. This was the damaged I talked about before.

I have some ideas to re-enforce the parts of the cockpit side-wall where these bolts were originally installed, as 12mm plywood alone is clearly not strong enough to hold the L-bars in place, but this seems like a problem that should pretty much affect all Pahi 42, although maybe more noticeable on models with two engines as the forces involved are stronger.

Anyone had to deal with this issue before and found a good way to improve this?