Anyone have their Radar Arch hinged?

abalmuth

abalmuth

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I'm contemplating doing the Great loop in 2020/2021 but as of now my boat is way too tall. I believe there is a fixed bridge in Chicago that is 19'.

I've read of various owners having their Arch hinged to lower their overall height.

Has anyone done this & if so any feedback would be great
 
My brother used to have a Heritage 36 with a hinged arch. I won't swear to it but I think it came from the factory that way.
We have several boats at our marina where the radar is on a hinged mount. The extra foot or so is all they need to get their boats in a covered slip.
 
Charles
Ive been asking many places on the web & So far it seems that there are very few that have be done after the fact/Non-factory.
Ill be discussing with my yard later this month
 
Are you on the Carver owner's website? If not, give it a try.
 
Hey, Charles
I have the question out on the Facebook Carver group & just did the same on the Carver owners
thx
 
I ve seen it on different boats. Basically you need to cut the arch at the base, make a pair of custom plates witha hinge and a lip along the edge of the plate that will fit inside the fiberglass arch to secure it. Not cheap but not rocket science either
 
Is the arch glass or aluminum? You may want to poke around a bit and see if the cables have plenty of slack.

DC lines can be extended easily enough but radar could be difficult.
 
Fiberglass or aluminum? I've run a few smaller aluminum boats (25-30' range) that have hinged radar 'pods', so that radome and other antennae and lights could fold back. Those boats were designed that way so they could fit in a C-130, but I can't imagine many bridges on navigable waters with less VC than a C-130 cargo bay!

Biggest issues were obstructing the main cabin door when lowered. They'll be solid when up in the normal operating position, and the wiring really just boils down to leaving some slack. I'd offer to grab you some pictures but I don't have those type of boats where I'm working now.
 
Arch is Aluminum.
I recently had a couple of Intellian Sat domes installed. One with Sat TV dish & the other with WiFi/G4 antennas as well as 2 new vhf antennas.
All of these were installed with long cables with the anticipation of the Arch moving. My electronics guy said the Radar cable has plenty of slack but ill most likely have it updated over the next year or so

As Pascal said its not rocket science.
But it need to be done right
Outside of Brian coming down with a chainsaw, I better start saving my $’s.
 
How about removing the arch and installing domes on a temporary arch or pole for the trip.
 
I think you hurt Brian's feelings. You know how sensitive he is.
 
I work for food..but I don't come cheap! And my chainsaw is always available to travel with me... Linda would be happy to have me and my chainsaw out of state for a few days...
 
With all of the welding it is going to make a mess of things. The arch can come off I suppose and that would be the best way to get it all done. Pull the arch, split and fab, then reinstall. Otherwise I am thinking the welding will be tough to isolate. The ones I have seen have a plate installed to cover both ends.
 
I believe there are a couple of forums that have a lot of loopers. Spend some time there, ask some questions and maybe you will get some advice as to how to avoid bridges that are too low
 
Ok, so having some Prime Aged Ribeyes for Brian with his saw gets the arch cut.
Now I need someone for welding the hinges!
 
Sort of along the lines of Bruce’s idea I can get a rigger to take down the arch just before the bridge and put it back up just after.
Of course my luck something will happen and ill have to turn around and do it all over again ;-)

Charles,
I have been on greatloop.org and im looking around. There is no alternate route around the 19'fixed bridge in Chicago.
Found a 530 voyager owner that has done the loop and waiting for a reply
 
quote:
Originally posted by abalmuth

Ok, so having some Prime Aged Ribeyes for Brian with his saw gets the arch cut.
Now I need someone for welding the hinges!

Click to expand...


That'll do nicely!
 
We've had this discussion some years back. At that time it was building a hinged arch. As I see it now, an arch already built will run into the problem of all the wiring. Welding on any metal will likely melt the insulation. I ran into that problem thinking of welding outrigger wishbones from my arch.

Most arches hinged from the rear stancions but there were problems with the pivot point not being close enuff to the trailing edge of a cabin roof if that was the design. I was thinking about hinging from the forward legs as it may be easier to handle and not as heavy, pivoting to the forward deck and not back to the cockpit. Oh Forgot, you have a big boat. Probably need pix to get help on a design.
 
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